Walking In the Light
by Raina1
Summary: After Dib's untimely death, Zim and Gaz struggle with trying to go on with their lives. As the years pass, they come to discover fate is not always out of one's control and sometimes there is such a thing as a second chance.
1. Time Passes

Disclaimer: ::to the tune of "You Don't Own Me" by The Blow Monkeys:: I don't own it, it's not one of my many toys, I don't own it, don't say I can't go with other shows. . . okay, enough ridiculousness. Invader Zim is copyrighted by Nick, Jhonen Vasquez and the Irken Empire. Okay, I made the last one up. Lyrics are from "Angel" by Sarah Maclachlan.

A/N: Guess what. Raina the Hypocrite has struck again. I have an excuse though. I'm creatively stuck in my novel The Lone Dissenter (as of this author's note) and I'm close to finishing it but I don't want to give it a crappy ending. So it's going to sit on the backburner until I can make the climax more climatic. Meanwhile I got another Zim fic idea leaping out of my brain. The characters are somewhat OOC but due to the circumstances in the story, I think it's justified.

Summary: This one picks up after Zim's monologue "Maybe One Day It Won't Hurt Anymore." The death of Dib has taken its toll on those who were closest to him. Zim is struggling with his own radically changed views on the world while trying to make sense of his own diminished life in the darkness of his rival's demise. Meanwhile, Gaz has become withdrawn and reclusive, trying to cope with the loss of her brother. Trying to keep a promise he made to his dead enemy, Zim tries to reach out to Gaz. He's unaware of the affect he'll have on her life and ultimately, he'll discover he has a power he never realized he had. . . . Each chapter has at least one song. 

***

Walking In the Light

By Raina

***

__

It's been a month. Sometimes I look back and can't believe it's been that long. The whole thing doesn't feel very real to me. I feel . . . disconnected. It's like every day I get out of bed and start living only I'm not living, I'm watching. I'm watching myself live a life I don't want to live, one I can't seem to live. The house is quiet and, except for the insane cackles of Gir, lonely. I used to hate to go to skool but now I find it a refuge. In skool I can absorb myself in skoolwork and not have to think about the end of the day where I'll have to leave and go back to that quiet, lonely house. At lunch I have to watch someone pick at her food listlessly, turn on her video game and not play it. Then I have to watch her catch me looking at her and suffer the pain of her glare.

How much longer will this last? I want to leave this wretched planet. I can't. I'm stuck here. I have no one chasing me so I can feel important. I have no one to create classroom dioramas with. My schemes aren't fun anymore because there's no one trying to stop me.

No one talks to me. No one looks my way a second time. None of these earth-stink act like there's an alien invader in their midst. I used to prefer this but now. . . It's like I'm dead.

I want them to pay attention to me. I want someone to point me out and say, "Look an alien!" or ask five billion inappropriate questions. I want someone to poke holes in my ego. I want someone to break into my house and take pictures. I want to be bothered. I want to be inhibited. Oh God, I just want it all. I want everything I hated back. But that will never happen because Dib is dead and nobody cares anymore. 

***

One Week Later

I can't eat this stuff.

He stuck his fork in the mass of white noodles drowned in red sauce. He twirled a length and lifted up to smell it. By reflex, he gagged and dropped the fork. "Horrible!" he muttered and shoved the offending tray away. "What sentient being eats this crap?"

He rested his chin on his hand and let his gaze drift around the cafeteria. As usual the lunchroom was bustling with the voices and bodies (not the mention smells) of human children. Most sat together in close-knit groups, heads bowed together to commune in their own little worlds. The other stragglers, branded by their own outsider status, merged together at their own select tables and engaged in conversations concerning their woeful place in society.

He sat alone. _I've always sat alone. I think that's the one thing I'm really good at above all else. Being alone. I excel at it. Somebody give me an A._

Nonsense.

He sighed and his eyelids dropped in boredom. They snapped open all the way when he saw Gaz walk in. She picked an empty table and sat down. She didn't even have a lunch to pretend to eat. By force of habit, he kept watching after her expectantly. Reality sank in immediately and he shook his head. He had to stop doing this to himself.

He got up and went over to her table. She was dressed no different than usual and beside the glaring obviousness of the missing GameSlave, everything about Gaz was normal. Except her hands just laid there in her lap uselessly and her eyes were downcast.

Zim cleared his throat.

Nothing. She didn't move.

He shrugged mentally and sat down carefully. Zim didn't want to disturb her from her self-possession although he longed to reach out and shake her out of it. _Talk to me I'm sitting right here, don't ignore me, I'm right here, please talk to me, there's no one else to talk to please talk to me._

But instead he said nothing. Like he always did. And she didn't move or make any sign he existed to her. Like she always did. It was their game. She would come in and sit down. Zim would come over and sit across from her. Then she would get up and leave.

There. She just left.

Zim put his elbows on the table and propped his head up. Every single time. He was getting sick of it. Yet he did nothing to change it. He never spoke. She never spoke. She would get up and leave and he would let her. Every time he was left feeling like he'd failed in some way. Every time he felt her hatred burning him, felt her silent unspoken animosity. She had his number and when the time came for it, she would make him pay. She would make him pay for something he hadn't done. There was no one alive to blame. 

No one alive to blame except Zim.

The alien brought both fists down with a double thunk. _No. This must not be. I cannot let things stand like this. I am Zim._

With a sense of resolve he hadn't experienced since the beginning of last month, Zim got up and marched after Gaz.

He found her sitting outside on a bench, zoning out. Her eyes were glazed over. When the alien approached, they cleared and fixed upon him. Zim winced as he felt waves of revulsion wash over him like water.

"Gaz." He ventured uncertainly. "I. . . Hey, wait!" She got up and started walking across the black top. He hurried after her. "Gaz. . ."

She slowed and stopped. Since her back was to him, Zim couldn't see the girl's expression. Taking that as a hopefully good sign, he continued guilelessly.

"Can we talk?"

Her shoulders hunched. After a bit, she slowly shook her head back and forth.

"Why not?"

Gaz turned around and looked right at him. Then she drew back her fist and punched the Irken soldier in the face.

Startled more than hurt, he fell back against the black top. The next thing he knew, she was standing over him, fists at her side. Zim covered his face with both hands and braced himself.

The attack did not continue. When he peeked, Gaz's eyes were still full of black heat. When she leaned over to speak, each word dripped with acid mockery.

"Did that hurt?"

Rather meekly, Zim nodded.

"Good."

Then she was gone. Zim sat up fast and extended a hand out to her retreating back. "Wait! I need to talk to you."

"There's nothing to say." She kept walking.

__

Uh-uh. I am not letting her win. Ignoring the stares of their peers, he caught up with Gaz. "Please, let me. . ." He made the mistake of touching her shoulder.

Gaz whipped around and grabbed Zim by the collar. "What part of 'there's nothing to say' didn't you understand?"

He was puzzled. "Which part?"

Gaz made a low threatening sound and let go of the alien roughly. "All right, if you want to be an idiot, fine. Let me say it to you plainly: LEAVE ME ALONE. Leave me alone or you'll need a dictionary to tell you what peace is." She made a fist and rested it between his eyes. "Do I make myself completely clear?"

"Yes." He squeaked it.

She lowered her fist, searching his face for any sign of a lie. Apparently she found what she was looking for because she gave a little nod and went on her way.

Zim couldn't resist calling after her. "How long do you want to keep this up, Gaz? You can't ignore me forever!"

No answer. 

"YOU CAN'T!"

She was gone.

***

Gaz walked home slowly, carefully placing each foot forward. Her lips moved as she counted each step under her breath. 

__

(Spend all your time waiting for that second chance

For a break that would make it okay)

"Stupid Zim," she muttered kicking a rock out of her path. "Stupid, brainless, green alien." 

She came to the curb and stopped. The intersection was clear. It was safe to cross. It was safe enough for a whole herd of elephants to cross. Gaz anxiously looked around, searching. No one. This side of the street was completely deserted.

__

(There's always one reason to feel not good enough and it's hard at the end of the day)

Gaz swallowed and went to the edge of the curb. Tentatively she teetered back and forth, feeling her body get hot all over. She started to lift a foot. A flash of memory so intense swept across her psyche, punching the air from her lungs.

A small sound escaped from her and she backed away. "There has to be someone," she murmured, desperately searching her side of the street. Usually there was someone she could ask or a group she could pretend to be a part of. Unfortunately not many kids took the route she had to take to get home. In the past, it wasn't a problem because she had. . . 

__

(I need some distraction

Oh beautiful release

Memory seeps from my veins)

Her nose itched and she swiped at it roughly, angrily. _I promised myself I wouldn't cry today. . ._

After a short, unsuccessful inner battle, Gaz moaned and sat on the edge of the curb, resting her forehead on her knees. A deep sense of shame filled her.

__

(Let me be empty and weightless and maybe I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel, fly away from here)

"What's the matter?"

She lifted her head, prepared to snarl "Go away" when she saw who was peering down at her. The usual rage that rose within her whenever he came around didn't come this time. Composing herself, the little girl stood and folded her arms to feign indifference. 

__

(From this dark cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear)

Zim eyed her for a few seconds. "All right, I see. Perfectly fine, nothing at all to worry about." He looked very angry though, despite the light-hearted tone. He started to the other side of the street after a cursory check of the road. Then someone reached out and caught him by the elbow.

"Huh?"

Gaz didn't let go. "Cross me."

"Cross you?"

She nodded.

__

(You're pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie

You're in the arms of an angel, may you find some comfort there)

Zim considered her. The poor creature's blank expression was enough for any adult human to take pity on her. Wordlessly he held out his hand to her. After a second of hesitation, she took it. 

__

(So tired of the straight line and everywhere you turn

There's vultures and thieves at your back

And the storm keeps on twisting)

When they made it to the other side, she immediately let go and hurried in the direction of her house.

__

(You keep on building the lie, that you make up for all that you lack)

It took the alien a little while to comprehend what all of that had meant. Then he knew. Gaz, who always seemed a distinct loner, Gaz, who never seemed to rely on anyone or anything, needed someone to walk with her across a street. Unbelievable.

__

(It don't make no difference escaping one last time

It's easier to believe in this sweet madness)

You never realize how much you need someone to hold your hand until there's no one around.

"But I am," he said aloud quietly. "I have to make her see that. Somehow." He glanced up toward the sky. "I could use some help."

__

(Oh this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

You're in the arms of an angel)

But it wasn't God he was talking to.

__

(May you find some comfort here. . .)

***

Two Months Later. . . . . 

***

Thunk. Bang. Smack. Thunk. Bang. Smack.

That was what the sound of a ball hitting the bumper of a car, the pavement and the palm of the hand was like.

It was a satisfying sound.

Zim drew back his arm for a particularly hard throw. The aim misfired, bounced off the windshield and struck him between the eyes. With a startled grunt, the alien was knocked backward. The blue rubber ball stuck to his forehead, giving him a comical appearance.

No one was around on this hot summer day to witness the Irken's foolishness in action and mock him for it. A heavy, humid silence in the absence of laughter hung over him instead.

The ball lost its sticky hold and rolled off his face. Zim turned his head to the side, watching it roll down the sidewalk. It fell into the street gutter and made its way rapidly toward a storm drain.

"Oh no." He jumped to his feet and raced after it. Too late. The ball fell down between the iron grating and got carried away by the sewage passing below. Zim sank to his knees and let his head drop. That had been Gir's favorite ball. Stupid robot and his precious comfort items. He growled angrily, more angry at himself for being so thoughtless than

at Gir's penchant for placing human sentimentality on mere things. 

Still, he couldn't resist muttering, "Curse you," before rising to his feet with effort. Sweat poured like rivers from his brow. It was horribly, insanely hot today. A human weather man on the TV had said it was supposed to go as high as hundred degrees. And that was just in the shade! He wished he could find the relief in water like the humans did. Unfortunately it only made his skin burn.

Giving up the ball for lost, Zim trudged his way toward home. Repeatedly he drew the back of his hand across his brow. Why had skool been let out for three months? Were the humans truly so dumb to think children would prefer to play out in the heat?

But I'm not a child. I haven't been a child for over a hundred years now.

About halfway home, he decided to take a break in the shade of an oak tree. While he rested with his back against the tree trunk, he watched a squirrel knaw on an acorn. It noticed the alien staring at it, chattered agitatedly and threw the thing at him. Zim only flinched slightly when it hit him on the arm and listlessly called after it as it scurried away. "You'll be sorry you did that, evil rat creature."

For about fifteen minutes he sat there, wishing he had the energy to make it back home where it was much cooler. The way things were going, though, he'd have to wait until the evening.

I hope I'm not in anyone's yard, he reflected sluggishly. The last thing he needed was some human running outside and screaming at him to get off their precious grass, which at moment was looking kind of yellow and dry.

"Humans and their stupid grass," he murmured. "Their stupid overappreciation for outdoor home décor and their stupid attachment to their stupidness. . ." He stretched lazily and crossed one ankle over the other. Yeah, he'd wait until it got cooler or got his energy back. Whichever came first.

Zim napped for a little while in the silence of the hot afternoon. When he woke to the sound of a car passing, he started counting how many passed by. Then he went on to size, shape, color, company, year and make. He learned more about human automobiles sitting there in two hours than it took for Henry Ford to come up with the letter T.

". . . . 2001 Ford Protégé, green, pretty silver hubcaps, going 30 miles per hour, the owner is a little old lady." He continued on boredly. "Who probably shouldn't be driving because it's hot and it's stupid to drive when it's hot and I'm bored out of my mind and I've lost all feeling in my lower back because I'm cutting off my own circulation, and there's a little girl walking by and now she's walking toward me and now she's staring at me funny because I'm sitting here talking out loud to myself so I should probably shut up now before she calls somebody . . . "

"Calls somebody?" the little girl interjected. "Why call somebody to shut you up when I can easily do that with my fist?" She made one to prove her point.

Zim snapped out of his monotonous, heat-induced drivel. He shook his head hard. "Oh, hello Gaz."

She appraised him lackadaisically. "Nice to see you too. Have you cracked?"

"Cracked?" Zim looked at himself and felt his head. "No. I don't believe so."

Gaz gave a little shake of her head and obliquely waved it off. "Hot out here isn't it?" She rubbed the sweat off her brow to demonstrate.

"You noticed."

The little girl smiled slightly at Zim's rather scathing reply. "Get up."

"Why?"

"'Cause you're coming somewhere with me."

"Where?" After the last two months of total silence and the healthy dose of the cold shoulder, whatever that came out of the blue with this human girl would always be suspicious.

Gaz appeared annoyed he'd bother asking. She was. Mostly it was the heat irritating her and it made for a fuse shortener. "Just get up."

"No." Zim glared her at to prove to her his resolve would always be intact. "Not until you tell me where we're going." As an afterthought. "And what we're doing."

Gaz eyed him, somewhat impressed with his shrewdness. "You don't trust me." It was a statement.

Zim just watched her quietly. _Let her decide for herself._

After a few seconds, she sighed. "Okay. We're going to my house. I need someone to help me clean out a room. . . it's for a yard sale." Guiltily she looked to the side. "I-I don't have anyone else to ask."

Wearily, Zim climbed to his feet. "Is that all? What is a yard sale?"

"It's. . ." Gaz made herself think about it. "It's when you have a bunch of stuff you don't want or. . . or don't have room for anymore and you can't keep it because. . . Well, it doesn't make sense to keep it, you know? You price them and then you put the stuff outside your house and hope someone wants to take your old stuff off your hands."

__

Off your hands? Zim looked at his own for a second then back at the girl. She just smiled half-heartedly and put her hands behind her back. "Yeah, um, there's a lot of stuff to go through." The little pack rat, she thought in sad affection. It wasn't Zim she was thinking about either.

__

Well, it doesn't sound dangerous. I can't imagine what sort of scheme she's planning with this 'yard sale' however this is the chance I'm getting.

"All right," he agreed. "I will help you with this 'yard sale' thing." He followed her back out into the sun toward the Membrane home. Gaz tried again to smile and almost made it this time.

"Oh yeah," Gaz began when they reached her home. "If you see anything you like, um, you can have it. Although I don't think there's anything you'd want." She was thoroughly uncomfortable, and she knew it was showing. Zim almost knocked her over getting in the house.

"Coolness! The wonderful coolness!" he exclaimed racing by her and standing in front of the stairs. "Victory for Zim!"

__

It's nice to see someone hasn't lost his edge. The human girl refrained from commenting and started up the stairs. "Follow me."

Zim broke pose and did.

Feeling very nervous, Gaz kept on talking. It was unlike her to talk so much but she had to do something to keep her mind off what was seething underneath the surface. "Uh, you haven't been here before, have you?"

"Not upstairs." In the hallway between two rooms, Zim spied a goldfish bowl with an orange fish with wide fins swimming around a stone castle. "Ooo, pretty."

Gaz paused in front of the second room. "That's Tak."

"Tak?!" Zim's eyes went round and wide. "That is NOT Tak!"

The human rolled her eyes. "No, stupid, that's the fish's name. Di. . . I mean, we named her after Tak."

Zim was confused. "Why? She tried to destroy your world."

Gaz shrugged. "That's what I wanted to know. But my broth. . . I mean, never mind." She opened the door to the room. "Coming?"

Zim nodded and tore his gaze away from the fish. He followed her up to the entrance to the room and halted. His mouth fell open. "This is. . ."

Gaz went to the window, tore back the curtains to allow sunlight to pour in. "I don't know why he always kept it so dark in here." She noticed the alien remained on the threshold, looking rather uncertain. "It's okay."

Zim entered the room and looked around. The walls were covered with every bit of paranormal memorabilia anyone could think of. Bigfoot, The Jersey Devil, Mothman, aliens, the Loch Ness Monster, banshees, ghosts, vampires, human mutants, dubious photos of UFO's. When he closed the bedroom door, a huge poster advertisement for ALIEN greeted him. It had a picture of an egg with green light coming out of a crack. Underneath it was the tagline: IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.

Despite himself, Zim chuckled. "I like that."

Gaz glanced up from where she knelt on the floor by the bed, which had little flying saucers all over the bed sheets. "You want it?"

Zim frowned. "Um. . . I'll think about it." Curiously he came to stand beside her as she pulled out a cardboard box from beneath the bed. "What's that?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Probably a whole bunch of magazines or something." She opened it, waving away the dust bunnies. Inside the box was a few neatly labeled notebooks, a couple of roles of undeveloped film and a leather-bound book entitled DIB'S JOURNAL: IF YOU TOUCH THIS I WILL KILL YOU. But in tinier print it said: Who'd Want To Touch It Anyway?

Both alien and girl laughed. Gaz gently picked it up and laid it aside. "I'll keep this," she said quietly, absently running a finger down the leather binding. "He probably would've wanted me to have it."

Zim reached down and picked up a notebook. "'Poems'?" Zim read aloud, his forehead furrowing. "What are those?"

"You're kidding." Gaz gently snatched the notebook out of the alien's claws. "Dib wrote poems?!" She shook her head and flipped through it. "Wow, he's got a table of contents and everything. Never knew he was so organized." Her curiosity piqued, Gaz plopped on the bedspread. Zim slowly eased beside her, glancing over her shoulder. He hadn't the slightest idea of what they were doing but if it was enough to fascinate her this much, it had to be worth a look.

For a few minutes, she simply flipped through it.

Zim spoke up. "Read one."

She glanced up questionably.

"I'm not very good at your language." Zim admitted sheepishly.

Gaz nodded. "All right." She picked one at random. "It's called Walking In the Light."

Stand still while I pour this water over you.

You're too much into the dark art of paroxysm.

Enough is enough.

I'm not here to blow sunshine in your face.

Or hand you a pair of rose-tinted glasses.

I just want you to crack a smile

Say something untinged by enigmatic mutters.

From where you come from I don't see.

We're two separate entities.

You see your sunless path and I see mine.

But I can let the light in when I can.

Where is yours?

I wait for it, watching while you stand in the shadows.

Understand I can't be here forever.

I have a life too.

Watching you drown in your own self-importance drains me.

See here this path?

I will walk it alone if I have to.

Hey, it doesn't bother me.

Not at all.

I'll take what life hands me and I don't care what kind of platter it's on.

As long as I can go out there and find it I'll take it.

Touch it with my hands and hold it up to the sky.

You see your sunless path and I see mine.

Stand still while I pour this water over you.

Let the light in when you can.

I'd so much like to walk with you in the light.

I can walk it alone.

But it would be even better if we could do it together.

Gaz closed it. For a long moment she sat there, staring straight ahead. "It was about me."

She sniffed. "I-I had no idea that's what he thought about me." A new levy of tears threatened her and she fought them back for the sake of pride.

Zim took the notebook and squinted at the poem. "You? But he didn't say your name."

"That's the beauty of poetry." Gaz said quietly. "He didn't have to."

Zim narrowed his eyes at the notebook suspiciously. "I wonder what he wrote about me?" It sounded selfish the second it left his mouth and he regretted the way it came out. 

Gaz pretended not to notice. "If he can write like that about me, I shouldn't be surprised of what he'd write about anyone else." She closed it and put it back in the box, nudging it back under the bed with her toe. "I'm going to keep these things." Taking a deep breath she indicated two large empty cardboard boxes lying beside the open closet. "The one marked YARD SALE is what we're going to sell and the unmarked one is what we're going to keep."

Zim merely nodded. Best let her make all the decisions. He still had no idea what cleaning out a room involved. However he sensed that cleaning out this particular one was going to be the most difficult experience he'd ever have to go through. He could see how much Gaz was suffering. Ever since. . . IT happened, Zim found it hard to bear. For himself and in others.

Gaz pointed to the closet. "You clean out the closet. Um, the clothes go in the marked box. Anything else, just ask me." She pointed to the furniture. "I'll-I'll do the rest." She bit her bottom lip and forced herself to meet his gaze. _I hate the way he's looking at me. If I look any harder at his eyes I'll see what I look like to him and there'll be no turning back from there._

Silently Gaz went about her self-assigned task, pulling out dresser drawers and riffling through them quietly.

Zim shrugged and stood before the open closet. Unlike most closets, this one was impeccably clean. A huge white plastic bin was the sole thing sitting on the floor. Curiously, he pried it open. He felt like an intruder and not in a good way. In another time, he would've mowed over entire earth neighborhoods to be where he was now. Here he was, finally, in the very place he longed to be and he couldn't enjoy it.

The lid came off easily. Casting it aside, the alien knelt down and perused the contents with his eyes. Video tapes. Probably twenty or thirty of them. All were labeled and stacked neatly. He picked one up and held it up. "Gaz?"

"Mmm?" The girl didn't glance up, preoccupied by a collection of CD's, mostly store bought blanks people usually purchased to burn music off the internet. 

"I found a bunch of video tape things."

Gaz put aside the CD's and came over. "Wow. Where'd all those come from?"

Zim squinted at the labels hard. "I think he made them."

She took the one he held and read the label. "Old House: Haunted? Or Not?" Unexpectantly she chuckled. "Okay, I know what these are."

Zim made his face ask the question. She answered. "Dib liked to go to these weird places with his video camera. I think he fancied himself a documentarian."

"You think?" Zim sniffed. "Usually whenever I turned around he was standing there holding a video camera up to his face."

A knowing silence passed between them. Then gradually they went back to their rummaging. For the next hour and a half, no more conversation passed between them except the occasional question from Zim about certain items, what they were or if they held any significance. Most things like the clothes, the posters, dubious snapshots of blurry objects, magazines, curtains and bed sheets easily found their way into the YARD SALE box. Other things, like the computer, notebooks, TV, VCR, picture albums, the videos and a few CD's stayed behind.

Over the past hour and a half, Gaz noticed Zim seemed ill at ease. Most likely he felt uncomfortable moving about in his former enemy's territory. He almost never met her eye when he asked her a question. If he misspoke and angered her, he mumbled an apology that sounded sincere enough. Constantly he readjusted his wig, more out of habit than out of need and the whole time a blank expression remained on his usually anti-passive face. Any residual hatred she felt toward the alien who sometimes flinched whenever she came near began to subside. He's not like Dib said he was, she thought. It was hard to believe this creature was once a power mad idiot who couldn't find his, ahem, with both hands.

"Do you still hate him?" Gaz heard herself ask, busily by closing the cardboard boxes. There was no real need to do that, it was just a way to cover up the shaking in her hands.

Zim looked up from where he'd taken to perching on the edge of the bed, staring out the milky glow of the window. "Huh?"

Gaz folded her arms and waited.

"Oh." The Irken enmeshed his fingers together, eyes fixed upon them. "I guess maybe. . . not. No."

A dark look came out over the Membrane child's face. "I guess it's easier to say that because he's dead."

Zim's face blanched white. He got ready to scream denial but he just couldn't. Slowly he nodded, not trusting his voice.

Gaz came and stood before him. "Zim."

The alien looked away. She reached out and touched his face, bading him to look at her. She dropped her hand when he complied. "Look, it's okay."

"No, it's not." Zim's eyelids drooped. "How can it be?"

Gaz sat beside him and put her hands around her knees. "It will have to be, Zim. You can't change the way you feel. I can't."

"But it's WRONG." Zim paused, surprised at how importunate he sounded. "It's wrong, isn't it? To stop hating someone after they're dead because you realized you never wanted them to die in the first place?" A deep, dark look came out on his face. "Do you have any idea how that felt? That still feels?"

Wordlessly Gaz nodded. "Yes. I know."

Stubbornly the Irken shook his head. "No, you don't. I actually wanted him to die. With a passion. I wanted to see him die. And I did. I got my wish." He sighed. "It was only after it was granted I knew in my heart it wasn't what I'd wanted at all."

The girl just kept nodding. Tentatively, she laid a hand on his shoulder. He jerked back and made a point of scooting away some. "Gaz," Zim said helplessly. "I know you hate me. Stop pretending you don't."

Gaz's mouth dropped. "Zim, I. . ."

He shook his head. 

His former enemy's sister made two fists of rage. "Zim!" When he flinched, she eased off. "Zim," she said more gently. "I don't hate you."

The alien drew himself together and shivered. "I-I want to believe that. But I don't think I can."

Gaz shrugged. "Whatever. You want to wallow in that lie, fine." She stood up. "It seems like that's the way you prefer to live anyway."

Zim's mouth fell open in shock. He couldn't process what he'd just heard. "The way I prefer to live? Hey, wait, you think I live in a lie?"

She nodded, although it wasn't a happy admission. "Yeah, I do. You pretend all the time. Pretend you're superior. Pretend you're all big and brave. Pretend you're smarter than everyone else. In reality, you're just this little coward that's afraid of his own feelings. You keep demanding praise because you don't believe in yourself. That's what I think." 

Zim made two bunches of the mattress material when his claws gripped it.

"I'm like that too. I live in my own lie. We all do. But I've never seen anyone cling as determinedly as you do to yours." Gaz backed down when she saw the blind rage fill behind the contact lenses. "Look, Zim, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just. . . . I just want you to move on."

Zim covered his face. He peered at her between his fingers. "What about you?" He waved at the now mostly stark and empty room. "Does this help?"

"Some." Gaz sank down on the floor and sat Indian style, her back to the bed. "It's part of it. It's always going to hurt but it makes it easier to bear."

Zim laid down and peered over the edge at her. For a few minutes he just watched her. "I'm sorry."

Huh? Was someone else in the room? It sure didn't sound like some self-centered alien. Gaz turned her head toward him. "For what?"

"I don't know. For whatever I did. That I'm doing. That I might do." Zim exhaled loudly. "I've changed a lot. I don't know if you noticed that but. . ."

Gaz had to smile. "I did."

The alien kind of colored red. "Well, I'm glad you did." He paused. "I regret we had to get to know each other like this."

Gaz shrugged. "Grief brings people together. But I'm not sorry for it." She rocked back and forth gently. "No one's ever tried to be my friend before. Not as hard as you did anyway." She stopped rocking and shifted around to look at him. "Thank you."

"You're, uh, welcome." He didn't think it needed to be said. It just felt good to say it.

Suddenly what she'd been dreading came up in her mind and knew the time had come to ask. "Zim?"

"Yes?"

"What happened?"

Zim peered at her closely. "Happened?"

"Between you and my brother. Before he died. Did he say anything?"

A long silence passed.

"Well," Zim said slowly, struggling, forcing his memory to surrender the information. "He kept asking for you. . . and he cried when I told him you couldn't come because you were in another ambulance." He stopped.

"Go on." Zim gave her a sad look. "Please. I want to know."

"Then," he went on slowly still, meticulously going back in time. "Then he kept crying. The paramedics tried to give him this morphine stuff but he wouldn't let them. 'No drugs, no drugs.' He said it while staring straight at me. I think he was afraid if he was unconscious I might try to do something. I don't know. But," Zim kept his gaze focused out the window. "His hands kept grabbing at the stretcher. That's how bad the pain was. So I took one of his hands and he held it so tightly it hurt me. I wanted to yank away but he kept saying, with this huge mess of tears coming out, 'Don't go!' I told him I wouldn't. I couldn't anyway, we were on an ambulance and I don't think I would've if even if we weren't." Zim faltered and stopped to get himself back under control. Deliberately he focused on the windowpane to keep steady. "Just before we reached the hospital, he let go. There was this kind of peacefulness on his face. The last thing he said to me was, 'It doesn't hurt, Zim.'" His voice started to go a little higher as he tried to fight back sobs. "Th-Then this insane, shrill noise filled the ambulance. The humans made me move out of the way while they tried to revive him. One of them had to restrain me. I went crazy, Gaz. I said a lot of things I shouldn't have said. 'You fool! You can't die! YOU CAN'T DIE! Do you hear me, miserable flesh creature? YOU. . . YOU CAN'T LEAVE UNTIL I MAKE YOU LEAVE!"

Zim couldn't go on anymore. He shut his eyes and listened to the quiet sounds of Gaz. She'd starting crying in the middle of the story but he'd continued on, like he'd been possessed. Had to finish it. Had to.

But now he stopped. The past had let him go.

Gaz looked up, her small face tear-stained. She reached up and touched the alien's hand, resting her own lightly over it. Zim put his other hand over it, permitting her to sob.

After a bit, her sobs subsided. She wiped away the remaining wetness and grabbed a nearby box of tissues. Neither said anything for a long time after that.

Zim moved to go, feeling horrible at having reopened a wound in the young girl he'd been trying so hard to shield everyone, including himself, from. _I never wanted to tell that story. I never wanted to relive it. Even though I always will. Every day._

Instead Gaz held his hand, making him stay put for a moment longer. "Don't go."

Zim sat back down.

"Just stay until you really have to go. Please?" 

Zim saw the desperation in her eyes and realized her feelings mirrored his own. Leaving her alone in the misery he'd rained upon her was exactly the last thing he wanted to do.

And to be alone for him . . . . that in its own way, was even worse. 

A/N: "Walking In the Light" was a poem I wrote some time ago about my brother who I always fight with and have never gotten along with. I decided to use it for this story because it reminded me of the way Dib might feel about his sister.


	2. Memories

Disclaimer: "Bright Eyes" lyrics are by Art Garfunkel. Interestingly, this song was used in the animated 1978 film, Watership Down, based on Richard Adams' war allegory (btw, I loved the book and the movie). The song happens when the brother of the main character goes in search of him when all the others believe him to be dead. Just thought I'd share that ;)

Correction: Mazda makes Protégés NOT Ford. This is so embarrassing since my mother owns one!

***

Three Days Later . . ..

So much noise and light. Hiding behind a booth unobscured by a glass wall failed to block it out nor did he expect it to. Rather he liked it. Made him feel safe in a weird kind of way.

Safe. He repeated the word to himself softly. His eyes followed the movements of the human waitresses moving about from table to table. Around seven a crowd had started streaming in non-stop and it was keeping the restaurant up in arms. Amazing so many humans in one place, coming together in one location for the sole purpose of eating.

The phenomenon fascinated him. Imagine wanting to eat around a whole bunch of strangers. Imagine having the power to order about a human drone to get you any type of food you wanted and neither the drone nor the human who wielded this power even thought anything of it. It was just life. The way it'd always been for as long as the short history of these creatures could remember.

They're all so young, Zim thought wonderingly. He winced when a waiter accidentally dropped a dish, causing a temporary bout of chaos as the china made a horrible racket falling to the floor. _Young and clumsy. Look at the primitiveness in which they serve food. A superior race would not use such mundane . . . _

_I'm doing it again._

Zim sighed. Old habits died hard. He returned his attention to Gir who was sitting across from the Irken stuffing his face. The little robot has just consumed the biggest burrito in the world and was now delicately licking his hands, being ridiculously dainty about it. The plate was licked shiny clean.

Gir heard the exhalation and glanced at his master. The alien looked sad. Master is sad, the droid reflected. I know! He stuck his thumbs at the sides of his head and made a face.

Nothing. Zim wasn't even really looking at him. More like he was looking through him.

Okay. I try this one! Gir pulled at his doggie suit's ears and made them round. He reached behind himself and yanked on his tail so it became really long. "Look! I'm Mickey Mouse!" He did a perfect inflection since his own voice was already high and squeaky to begin with. "Want me to sing the theme song?"

Success. Zim managed a small, barely there smile. "No thanks, Gir."

"Awwww." Gir made a face and pulled his suit's features back into place. "No fair. Oh well. Can I have another burrito?"

"You've had six already."  

"But I want another one!"

"Well, you can't have another one." Zim signaled the waitress who'd served them. "Miss?" 

"Yes?" she said pertly, coming over. She was a make-up clad blonde job with all the cliches to go with it. 

"Can I have the bill?"

"Sure!" Off she went, all smiles despite the fact she'd been serving customers for over seven hours. One had to admire her tenaciousness.

"Why not?" Gir looked all pouty.

"Because I said so." The waitress returned with the bill. Zim's eyes bugged out when he read it. 

"Aw man," the robot whined. "I like burritos. I have to have them or I'll explode!"

"Well, I'm sorry," Zim said sharply counting out three twenties and placing them on the table. "Accept no for an answer."

Gir frowned and sat back, folding his little arms. "You're mean."

Hearing this unexpected retort from his servant, Zim blinked several times. "Gir, now really . . ." he admonished.

"You are! You're always mean to me!" The robot's facial expression didn't change. "All the time!"

Zim got mad. "I am not mean to you  . . . all the time!" He paused and tried to make sense of it. "Just when you're being stupid about things."

"Not all the time." Gir replied astutely. "You used to be nice. But then you got mean."

Very confused, Zim tapped his chin. "When did I get mean?"

Gir was blunt. "After big head boy died." 

Zim sat back in his seat, taking the heavy-handed reply in. After a bit, he simply nodded and stood. "Let's go."

Gir hopped down, all former resentment evaporated like yesterday's rain. "Yay! Let's blow something up!"

"Not tonight." Zim pushed out of the restaurant. He paused outside the door to attach a dog leash to Gir's collar. "Where do you want to go now?" He tried to sound cheerful and eager.

Gir thought hard and then brightened. "I want to look at the exploding lights!" He meant fireworks.

Zim checked the time. "The baseball game ends in ten minutes. I guess they'll be shooting them off soon."

Gir giggled. "Baseball! Hey, remember last time I caught the ball?"

"Yes. Then you ate it."

The SIR just kept snickering. "Baseballs are yummy."

Zim shrugged and gave the leash a tug. "Let's go."

Gir danced around the marching Irken, excitedly taking in the evening sights and sounds of downtown. He gawked at the taxis and the blaring stereos of passing teenager filled cars. He pointed at the odder things like sidewalk sales, fat ladies, a can in the gutter and a man who entertained street crowds with his card tricks. Everything fascinated the robot about human culture. It was his element, his livelihood. His master's indifference and loathing toward it always confused the simple-minded robot. Why hate something so big and so wonderful? He tried to convey his happy, silly views by grinning at his master from ear to ear. All he got in response was that same, sad smile he'd taken to wearing whenever Gir tried to cheer him up.

"C'mon, master, the exploding lights will cheer you up!" Gir piped. "They make me happy!" He giggled wildly as he skipped along.

"Why do they make you happy, Gir?" Zim wanted to know. It was part automatic response and part wanting to know.

"They're pretty! And they explode!" Gir snickered. "I like the colors." He thought a second. "Don't they make you happy?"

"Never thought about it." Zim replied absently, not really paying attention. He paused before a strip mall window. There was an advertisement poster for the new UFO museum that was going to be built on the west side. Somehow that made him remember faint traces of a conversation he'd overheard once.

_"I can't wait till they build the museum, Gaz! Finally someone's decided to take these things seriously!"_

_"They're just building it to make money, Dib. They're not taking anything seriously."_

_"Oh you just don't understand!"   _

Zim made himself move on. Gir stared at the advert a second longer before an encouraging tug on the leash reminded him to keep up.

"I have to stop remembering," he said aloud. "I can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?" Gir asked.

"Remembering."

"Remembering what? Remembering is good cos I wouldn't know where to find my tacos!" Gir mugged happily. "I forget sometimes."

Zim patted Gir on the head, which surprised the droid a little. He'd never known his master to be the affectionate type. In good nature, he patted his master on the arm in return.

"There it is!" Gir squeaked as the stadium came into sight. "Can we go all the way up to the top like last time?"

In answer, Zim's spider legs came out. 

"Yay!" Gir clapped his paws together. 

***

CRACK!

"HE DID IT!" screamed the loudspeakers to the point of static. "HOME RUN!"

Zim and Gir, from their perch on the highest seats closest to the sky, tilted their heads back as they watched the tiny object sail into the night sky. The crowd went wild, throwing up their hands, stamping feet, tossing food, doing whatever it took to express incensed glee at someone else's victory. Way down below, the human player who had hit the ball with his stick was running around the diamond shaped area while humans on the sidelines urged him on. When he slid into what was oddly called 'home base' the crowd got even crazier. At one point, a renegade hotdog came out of nowhere and beaned Zim in the nose. He picked up the offending piece of processed meat and threw it over his shoulder.

"Yippee! Outta da park!" Gir hopped up and down. "I'm gonna go find the ball, 'kay?" Rockets sprouted out his back and he vanished before Zim could give an ode of permission.

"Wait! You'll miss the . . ." Gir was gone though, "exploding lights. Ah well . . . " Zim trailed off and shrugged. Why expect anything else from someone with the attention span of a gnat?

_(Is it a kind of dream,_

_Floating out on the tide,_

_Following the river of death downstream?_

_Oh, is it a dream?)_

Let's try a little enthusiasm. Zim picked up a stray pennant lying near his feet and waved it. "Yay. We win." Not working. The pennant dangled from his fingers uselessly and he let it fall back to the ground. "I don't understand this," he finally said aloud. "Nothing got destroyed."

_"Destruction doesn't necessarily cue victory."_

"I know," he replied to the unspoken statement. "But what is the point?!"

_"It's entertainment, Zim." _

"Entertainment? All of THIS is to AMUSE?"

_"Yeah, basically."_

"That's stupid!"

_"No, it's not. It's culture. It's just different."_

_(There's a fog along the horizon,_

_A strange glow in the sky._

_And nobody seems to know where you go,_

_And what does it mean?_

_Oh, is it a dream?)_

"Oh what would you know. . . wah!" Zim jerked back when he turned to speak to whatever was apparently addressing him. It was Dib. He held up his hands defensively. "No! You're dead!"

Dib shrugged. He was sitting in Gir's vacated seat. _"Yes, I'm dead."_

"B-But you're here! You're right THERE!" He pointed right at the seat.

The human shook his head. _"No, I'm not here. You're just imagining me. This is all in your head."_

"Are you a ghost then?"

"No, Zim. I'm not a ghost. I told you, I'm a manifestation in your head. You're giving your conscience a physical form and I happen to look like Dib – to you."

Zim didn't get it. "Huh? How can you be answering my questions then?"

The Dib form shrugged. _"I'm not answering your questions. You already know the answers."_

"I do?"

"Yes."

_(Bright eyes,_

_Burning like fire._

_Bright eyes,_

_How can you close and fail?_

_How can a light that burned so brightly_

_Suddenly burn so pale?_

_Bright eyes.)_

"Oh." Zim fell silent. "How come my internal voice looks like you – I mean, Dib?"

_"Because you've always seen him as a part of yourself,"_ the Dib form explained_. "The part of yourself you kept hidden. Kind of like a second hidden personality."_

Zim shifted his weight around uncomfortably. _"Uh, could you just say 'I' instead of 'he' and 'him'?"_

_"Hey,"_ the Dib form spread his hands. _"I'm you. I say whatever you want."_

The alien waved his hands. "Look, this is weirding me out enough already. So let's just pretend I'm talking to a ghost." 

"If it suits you."

_(Is it a kind of shadow,_

_Reaching into the night,_

_Wandering over the hills unseen,_

_Or is it a dream?)_

Zim drummed his fingers on his knees and thought for a few seconds. "Um. . . why?"

_"Why?"_

"Why did you die? How come you didn't fight it?"

"I can't tell you that. Only Dib knew that and he can't tell anyone."

Zim groaned. "You can only tell me what I know. Well, what do I know? You're dead."

"Yes."

"The official cause of dead was, um, head trauma."

"Yes."

"I guess what I'd like to know is," Zim looked up. "Why did you put yourself in that situation? You knew what would happen when that car would hit you. But you went ahead and did it anyway."

_(There's a high wind in the trees,_

_A cold sound in the air,_

_And nobody ever knows when you go,_

_And where do you start,_

_Oh, into the dark.)_

_"I had to,"_ the Dib form explained. _"It would have gone against everything I believed in if I had let my sister die."_

"What did you believe?"

"I loved her, Zim."

"She didn't seem to love you back very much," Zim pointed out. "Not until you were dead."

_"She did. Even before I died. You already know this so why ask it?"_

"Because I want to understand." Greatly upset, Zim stood up and made two fists. "Irkens don't know love! We don't HAVE sisters or . . . or brothers! I want to understand humans, Dib, I really want to understand!"

_(Bright eyes,_

_Burning like fire._

_Bright eyes,_

_How can you close and fail?_

_How can a light that burned so brightly_

_Suddenly burn so pale?_

_Bright eyes.)_

The Dib form stood along with Zim and assumed his enemy's usual frowny expression. _"Then open yourself to it. What you're doing is stubbornly sitting outside and trying to observe the way you used to without the disgust. You can't watch this one, Zim, you have to live it and feel it. It's the only way you can really understand what I was fighting for."_

Zim advanced toward Dib, pleading. "Please, tell me. I-I'm not smart enough for this. I'm-I'm too scared."

_"You can do it," _the human apparition said encouragingly, cracking out the trademark smirk. _"You're Zim, remember? You can do anything."_  He vanished.

_(Bright eyes,_

_Burning like fire._

_Bright eyes,_

_How can you close and fail?_

_How can a light that burned so brightly_

_Suddenly burn so pale?_

_Bright eyes.)_

"Dib!" Zim cried grabbing at the spot. "Don't go! Come back! Dib!" His posture sagged

and he whispered, "Don't go . . ."

He sat in the empty seat and let his head fall into his hands.

Above him the sky exploded with color and light. The fireworks had begun.

The Next Morning . . ..

Why did it always seem when you wanted to find something, you couldn't find it?

Gaz sat in the middle of her room. Around her a sea of personal affects fanned out across the floor. Muttering in frustration, she stuck her small hands on her hips. For several hours she had been hunting and hunting for a video game all over her room and no matter how many times she turned it upside down, she couldn't seem to find it.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Gaz got to her feet and headed into the empty room beside hers. Single-mindedly, not really paying attention to what she was doing, she opened drawers, boxes and then the closet. There she paused and let her arms drop to her sides again.

There it was. The video game was sitting on top of the lid of the plastic bin. Almost as if it were put there on purpose. She picked it up and started to leave when something tugged at her. Her gaze rested on the white bin for a few more moments.

Finally she put the game aside and pulled out the white bin. She opened it and began digging. She found a tape and read the label.

EVERYDAY LIFE AT DIB'S HOUSE

Perfect.

She ran to living room and stuck it in the VCR. After adjusting the tracking speed, she sat down in front of the large screen. The picture jumped a few times before starting.

It was a picture of Dib's room. The date in the lower left hand corner indicated the recording had been made five months before.

The shot stayed tight on the closed curtains before someone picked it up and carried it out of the room. It headed down the hall toward the stairs before taking a detour to Gaz's room. It slowly peeked around the corner.

The Gaz in the film was sitting on her bed, head resting on her hand with a large book in her lap. She didn't see the camera advance on her bit by bit.

Dib's always energetic voice spoke up off screen. "Hello Gaz! I'm documenting my life! Want to say anything for the camera?"

"Go away." She didn't look up but she sounded annoyed.

Gaz watched herself and chuckled. Never knew I was so surly.

Dib persisted. "One thing and I'll leave you alone. Please?"

"You're a dork."

"And?"

"And you're getting on my nerves. It's either I finish this page or I kick your butt. It's your call." All this said while staring at an open book.

The camera came a bit closer. "Oh, c'mon, can't you humor me for once?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Go away."

"Why won't you tell me?"

Finally the onscreen Gaz slammed the book closed and held it up like a weapon. "You've got to the count of three before I make things start breaking. Namely you."

The camera rapidly backed up, bouncing all over the place. "Okay, okay! I'm sorry! I'll leave. See?" The camera retreated until it was outside the room. "This is me leaving. This is me backing down the stairs." Suddenly the camera swung upward crazily and a whole bunch of tumbling shots flashed, some of the stairs and the ceiling before settling. The camera laid on the floor on its side. Dib was sitting in front of it, rubbing his head. "Ow. That hurt."

At the sight of seeing her brother again, Gaz sat up straighter and closer to the screen.

He looked off camera and yelled. "I'm okay!" He muttered off to the side, just barely picked up by the mike, "Like any of you care." Dib stood up painfully and limped out of the room. "I need a band-aid."

Gaz fast-forwarded through the stationary shot of the stairs until it was picked up again.

"Okay," Dib narrated opening the front door and walking outside. "This is my front yard and here at the end of my walkway, this is my house." He panned around the place. "I've lived here all my life. Actually, this is the house my parents bought while Mom was pregnant with me. It's also their first house out of the city. Before they lived in a crappy apartment in the city where whenever you flushed the toilet, the electricity would go out." Dib laughed. "Glad I missed that! Gaz was born later. That was the girl you just saw. She's my sister. And sidekick of sorts. She's kind of mean but she's cool."

Gaz smiled and hugged the couch pillow she'd put in her lap.

"'Kay, more about me and my own later. This quiet suburban street is my neighborhood. Those little kids in the yard next door are Ann and Roy. Ann is four and Roy is six. I baby-sit them sometimes when I'm not saving the world."

Gaz's mouth fell open. She never knew that! Whenever Dib had run out at odd hours of the evening usually following a phone call where he said, "I'll be right there," she had just assumed more of his paranormal activities. This whole bit was new to her.

Ann and Roy spotted Dib filming them and waved. "Hi Dibby!" Ann ran to the fence and put both tiny hands on the chain links.

"Hey Dib!" Roy pointed to the camera. "What're you doing?"

"Making a movie."

"Neat!" Little redheaded Ann jumped up and down, using the fence for support. "Can we be in it?"

"You're in it right now."

"Yay!"

Equally carrot topped Roy folded both arms over the fence. "So when you watching us again?"

"I don't know. Whenever your parents call me I guess."

Roy grinned. "They might ask soon. They want to go out on a date again." He made a face. "They're married! They don't NEED to date no more."

"Yeah!" Ann piped, puckering out her lower lip. "Why can't we go with them?"

Dib laughed. "Sometimes parents have to have time to themselves."

"Why?" Ann asked.

"Because if they didn't, they wouldn't be those two fun people you love so much. They'd go crazy," Dib replied. "That's why they have to go out sometimes so they don't forget how to have fun with you guys."

Gaz grinned and shook her head, happy and disbelieving at what she was seeing. I had no idea he was good with kids. Under all that anti-social behavior, obsession with the paranormal and saving the world from Zim, Dib found time to baby-sit a couple of kids and be really good at it. It also made sense why those kids and their parents had been at the funeral. Gaz had always wondered about that.

Meanwhile Roy nodded. The whole thing made sense to his young mind. "Hey Dib, I saw Zim!"

"You did?" If Dib was disturbed by any of this, he did a good job of covering up the frantic anxiety. "When?"

"The other day," Roy explained. "He walked by my house. I said hi to him but he ignored me. He had a little green dog with him too!"

"But we knows he's a robot," Ann stage-whispered. "Doggies aren't green!"

"I got mad," Roy explained, "and then I told him I knew he was an alien. He ran away REAL fast. It was funny."

Dib just laughed, making the camera shake. "There you go. Proof as told by little children I'm not crazy! At least there are some people who believe me, even if they are just two little kids."

"Hey, I'm not little! I'm four!" Ann stood up straight and got a stern look on her face. "Almost old enough!"

"Old . . . enough?" Dib asked, his tone clearly showing he was confused. "For what?"

Roy pretended to hide his mouth behind his hand. "She wants to marry you when she grows up."

"Roy!" Ann shrieked as her brother ran off laughing with her hot on his tail. "I told you not to tell!"

"Well," Dib remarked after they were gone. "That was a revelation. They're good kids . . .. Aw man, the battery's about to go dead. I'll finish this later."

The screen went black.

There was nothing else.

Gaz sighed. "You never finished it." She got up and rewound the tape. After ejecting it, she held it almost reverently between her two hands. This tape had shown her more about the brother she'd known all her life and then discovered hadn't really known at all.

"I wish I could turn back time. I'd do it all different." Gaz turned off the TV and headed into the kitchen.

Right. Turn back time. Like that could ever happen.


	3. The Trouble With Candlelight

A/N: You'll start to notice that this story not only deals with grief but presents memory heavy situations. So if you're wondering why the characters seem to be thinking of the past so much because that's the point of this story. I absolutely love the Dib character and by writing a story dealing with his death is actually showing my appreciation. He's the first Nick character in a long time to actually have real identifiable problems. Ginger has nothing on him. My two cents again, heh. ;) Oh yeah, Gaz is older in this chapter. This turns into a ZAGR but it's more of a relationship where they're only hurting themselves by having it. You'll see what I mean. Oh yeah, no more songs. Got tired of typing the lyrics.

WARNING: I don't know how old my readers are but the end of the chapter leaves no doubt in the reader's mind what's going on.

***

A Couple of Years Later . . . 

BOOM!

Gaz winced as the house shook. Thunderstorms always unnerved her, especially the kind that showed up without warning in the middle of a hot day. Those kinds made the trees lash the screens press into eye-shapes against the windows and the rain trickle noisily through the rain gutters on the house. They also made the electricity go off, like in this instance, and she was stuck with nothing but her GameSlave 2 for entertainment. Eventually she tired with playing, as intelligent beings always did after realizing after dying about forty-seven times, they were not likely to beat the level any time soon.

Wandering through the darkened empty house (her father was away at his lab again), Gaz searched for something to do. She wished fervently she could hide under a blanket with someone, hold a flashlight up to her face and tell scary stories. Until the green kid showed up, she had been able to enjoy doing that on a daily basis.

__

That was so much fun. I wish we hadn't stopped doing that.

She opened the linen closest in the hall and smiled to herself when she saw what she was looking for right in front of her face. Candles.

Pretending she was living back in the days before Edison discovered the tungsten wire; Gaz strategically placed a stick of wax in a candleholder around the most immediate places around the house. Remembering what her father told her about fire hazards, Gaz only stuck one on the kitchen table and another on the coffee table in the living room. Anywhere else in the house, she carried around a portable candle. 

After lighting the last candle (there were three all together) Gaz indulged in a bit of silliness. "Hehe, now's I need is a cauldron and eye of newt! Hehe!" She quit the act. "Right." The chore of finding light finished, Gaz sat in the middle of the floor with a deck of cards. Humming under her breath, she played Solitaire until she felt hungry and went into the kitchen for something to eat.

I'll have a sandwich, she decided.

She went in search of bologna and bread, easy enough to find. After getting the Miracle Whip from the fridge, Gaz opened the knife drawer. Her hand gripped the handle unusually tightly as she slowly drew it out. There they were, arranged neatly by size in the knife holder. The weak light from the kitchen window reflected off them, giving them an eerie shine.

Gaz lifted her hand to pick up the medium sized one. When she saw her hand was shaking she made a fist and held her hand away. What was wrong with her? Why was it so hard for her to pick up a knife?

Shutting her eyes, she reached for it again. Stopped. Tried again and the same thing happened. Gaz made a little sound of frustration and forced herself to pick up the knife regardless of the shaking in her hand. She held it up. See? Just a knife.

There was a flash of lightening just then. It lit up the whole room. The knife suddenly glowed as if with a light of its own. In that moment, the girl saw her own secret desire and it horrified her.

Gaz shrieked and dropped the knife. Breathing hard she climbed down from the chair, grabbed it, tossed it back in the drawer and slammed it shut. Quickly she pushed the chair back to the table, digging her fingers hard into the seat. All feelings of hunger had evaporated.

I'm being silly, she told herself sternly. I'm being silly and stupid. I'm acting like an empty-headed little girl.

__

I have to call someone. I have to call someone or else something bad will happen. 

Can't use the kitchen phone. Power's out, remember?

My cell phone. The one Dad gave me for Christmas. It's in the living room right next to the remote.

Gaz went and got it. She stared at it in her hand. Who do I call? She sighed and hit speed dial. There was only one number she could call. There was only one person she could talk to.

"Hello?"

Gaz felt her heart lift just a bit. Another person's voice. Suddenly her island of isolation gained another member. "Hi, it's, uh, me."

"Me? Who's 'me'? I don't know anyone named Me."

Gaz found a rare smile stretch across her face. Too bad he couldn't see it. "You are such an idiot, Zim. It's Gaz."

"I knew that," he replied defensively.

"Uh-huh." She didn't believe him. "Um, so what's up?"

"My elevator at the moment. It got stuck when the power went out. With me in it."

"Hehe," Gaz snickered picking up her candle and walking around the kitchen. "Is it working yet?"

"Yes. I cannot believe the weather on this planet. One moment I'm heading down to my lab, the sun is out and the next second this loud noise is shaking my house and that horrible stuff is drumming on my roof!" Zim sounded completely mortified. "I think your planet is out to get me."

Gaz chuckled. "It's just a thunderstorm, Zim. Isn't there weather where you come from?"

"No. Irk doesn't even have seasons."

"How boring."

"Boring?" Zim replied in astonishment. "I should think this would be cause for envy for your people. Imagine not having to worry about your skin being burned off on any given day!"

"I don't have to worry about my skin being burned off, Zim. You do."

"Well, you have your sun don't you?" he argued. "I've seen humans turn red after long exposure to the sun. They call it sunburn, don't they?"

"Yeah." Gaz wanted to talk about something more interesting. "Um, so how are things? I haven't seen you for some time."

Zim heard the hidden melancholy in her voice. "The same. I've been conducting a lot of experiments. I think I'm coming close to a break-through regarding your ozone layer. Although I can't seem to figure out a way to make all the cars on your planet to stop running."

Gaz raised an eyebrow. "Environmental science, Zim? Are you trying to save the world?"

"Um, sort of." He sounded embarrassed. "I mean, what else can I do with it if I'm not going to destroy it? Did you know Earth is beautiful?"

"Yes." Gaz tried not to sound like it was old news to her. A sly tone came out as she said, "Zim, are you going to give me a save the world speech?"

"Um, no. I kind of take it from how you sound it's probably not a good idea."

"Oh?" The girl blinked, watching the leaves toss around violently outside. The rain had stopped but now it was just really windy.

"You'll laugh."

"No, I won't." Gaz paused, chewing on her bottom lip. "Um, listen, I'm all alone here and."

"Again?" the alien interrupted.

"Yes. My dad he, uh, he had to stay at the lab. He's a scientist you know and, um, his work his very important." Gaz was aware how lame this sounded. Who else was going to defend him though? "How much help can I be, I mean, I don't know anything and all his equipment is there and."

"Gaz."

"What?"

There was a long pause. "He shouldn't be leaving you like this."

"Oh no," Gaz faked cheer. "It's fine. I can take care of myself."

"A human of your age shouldn't be left alone."

Tell me about it. Still Gaz fought the logic screaming at her. "It's okay, really. I'm old enough. Sixteen, Zim. Trust me. It's okay."

"No, it's not, Gaz." Zim sounded dead serious. "I don't think it's okay at all."

Gaz made a gesture of exasperation. "What do you think I should do then? Talk to him? It's not like I haven't tried, believe me! I might as well not BE there for all he notices!"

There was a long thoughtful silence on the other end of the phone. "I have an idea. Next time you're left alone, come to my house. Better yet come over right now."

"I can't," Gaz insisted. "It's too windy and. . . and. . ." She didn't want to voice the other reason why she couldn't go over. It meant passing by THERE, going across THERE. Essentially it meant facing something she knew deep in her heart she couldn't do. 

"And what?"

Gaz shut her eyes and curled up on a big overstuffed armchair. "Zim," she whispered into the phone. "I can't."

"You'll have to some day," he tried to comfort her and somehow he felt he wasn't getting it right. "It's not easy for me either."

"But you've seen stuff like this before," she said still in a quiet voice. The years old hurt came back to haunt her. "Y-You've watched people die. You . . . you've made people die. You told me you were a soldier, didn't you?" Silence. She kept going. "You're older than any human alive, you must have seen worse than. . . this."

"Yes. I have. But Gaz, it still doesn't make it any better. It's only now I've just realized. . ."

"Zim, come over. Please."

"All right but I have to fix. . ."

Again the scene from the kitchen flashed through her mind and Gaz's next demand came out trembling. "NOW. Please. . . I'm scared."

A sigh came over the line. "I'll be right over." Click.

Gaz shut off the phone and hugged herself. She stayed that way until the doorbell rang. Without moving, she yelled, "DOOR'S UNLOCKED!"

A few minutes later, Zim was standing in the living room. He saw her lying in the chair and came over. When he drew close enough, Gaz rose from the chair and put her arms around him hard.

Zim staggered back a bit from the ferocity of the embrace. The meaning of this human gesture always eluded him. It was done ever so rarely between humans and when it was done, it was supposed to be very important. It had something to do with these affectionate feelings the human race possessed.

"Thank you," Gaz murmured letting him go. "For coming over. I-I didn't mean to sound like such a wuss but . . ."

Zim waved it off. "Don't." He glanced around. "So what have you been doing?" He spied the candles and the abandoned game of Solitaire.

"Not much." Gaz sat on the floor beside her card game. "Want to play War before I put these away?"

"War?!" Zim exclaimed. "War is NOT a game nor should the word play be used to describe it!"

The human just cleaned up the cards and put them back in the deck. "It's what the game is called, it's not actually war." She sat on the other side of the coffee table with the burning candle. Zim sat on the opposite. For a few minutes, both watched the flame's shadow dance along the walls and ceiling.

"I used to like it when the power went out," Gaz began quietly. "It was a lot of fun because it would get so dark and then we'd have to get flashlights and sometimes candles. If I wanted to take a bath, I had to lie a flashlight across the tub and then I would have to be careful that it didn't fall in and electrocute me!" She thrilled a little when the alien laughed. "Then sometimes we'd lock ourselves in the attic and tell scary stories until we had to go to bed. It's the only time I ever got scared."

"If they're just stories," Zim started, a bit baffled, "why did they scare you?"

"Because of the way they were told. When I was younger, I actually used to start crying. Of course then the story would stop and I'd get a hug and an apology." Gaz folded her hands on top of the table. Her eyes were downcast. "He was really good about that. Even changed the ending just to make me happy." 

Zim instinctively knew whom she was referring to. "Wow." He shook his head.

"Wow what?" 

A look of fascination came over his face. "The way some of you humans do things just to make each other happy. Just to make someone smile. Even if it makes you feel bad you somehow feel good in another way because even though YOU'RE not happy, the other person is." He shook his head again. "That is amazing to me."

"Sounds like you put a lot of thought into it."

He nodded. "I did. It never occurred to me to want to make anyone else happy."

"Why not?" Gaz gestured for him to explain.

Zim folded his hands together in front of him. "My people we. . . we don't have feelings like compassion or happiness. It was bred out many centuries ago when we stopped producing offspring naturally. Irk is sort of Spartan, to use a human word. Totalitarian. The society I come from works like a machine." He paused, thinking about how Dib would have loved to be sitting here and hearing all this. "Except for the Tallest, none of us really matters. The concept of individuality doesn't exist."

"Ugh. That must suck."

Zim smiled slightly and shrugged. "I guess from an individualist race's point of view, it does. Your people are the most individualistic of all the races I've encountered. I hadn't seen anything of the like before - no Irken has - so I simply assumed you were all just very stupid because it didn't follow the 'superior' structure of Irken society."

Interested, Gaz rested her chin on her hand. "Now what do you think?"

"Now I think," Zim went on thoughtfully. "It's not stupid at all." He smiled then. "Just different. It seems to work for you."

Gaz almost laughed. "We try. Living in a Capitalist culture isn't everything it's cracked up to be but really, if it wasn't that, it'd be fascist, communistic or Irken." A very intrigued look came over her face. "Actually you taking over wouldn't have been a bad idea."

"Oh yes it would have." Zim stressed this seriously. "We'd have made you give up everything." He looked down. "Now that I think of it, you all would have died. Your people just wouldn't have been able to take that kind of ruthlessness. During your World War II, when captured by enemies, sometimes a human could talk himself out of a horrible fate by appealing to the enemy's emotions. That's what it came down to in the end. But with my people, you would have had nothing to appeal to. No." Zim shook his head. "Taking over your world would not be a good idea. Besides it'll never happen even if I hadn't changed my mind." 

Gaz's face furrowed a bit. "Why?"

Zim smiled tiredly. "You know what you told me about living in a lie a few years ago?"

She nodded.

"Here's a shocker." Zim spread his arms as if showing himself off. "I'm a bona fide outcast. I'm a contradiction. I'm a disaster. I'm a mistake." He quit with the false bravado. "My Tallest sent me here to die, Gaz. I've been kicked out of my own species. For centuries I've been operating under a delusion of virtuosity reinforced by them and others. Purely for their amusement because they couldn't believe how stupid I was. The only one who came clean with me was Tak and I ignored her." Zim removed his wig and fake eyes. Why bother wearing them anymore? "It's only recently I've come to realize she was in the same boat as me." He gave a little snort at the human maxim he just used. "Instead of pretending to belong, she asserted her individuality and adjusted it so she COULD belong. She had fun with her uniqueness while I just pretended I wasn't when I really was. I think that's part of the reason why she acted so frustrated around me. I'm surprised she didn't kill me when she had to chance."

"Maybe it's because she saw herself in you," Gaz said quietly. "Did you ever think about that?"

He nodded. Yes, it had occurred to him. "I wish I could tell her. I often look for her, you know. Send transmissions. Asking her to listen. Sometimes begging her to listen. I don't know. I mean, we were enemies." Zim gazed into the firelight. "Maybe I just want to make up for making so many of them."

"You want to make amends," Gaz said in the tiniest bit of awe. "Is that one of the reasons why you won't leave me alone?" She smiled to show him she was kidding.

"Yes. You're my only real friend. . . and you don't seem to care that I'm just this short green alien with a big mouth." Zim felt his mouth turning up when he said that. He wasn't as short as he used to be, thanks to a sudden growth spurt. He was still shorter than most humans of his apparent 'age group' but it made him fit in better.

Gaz's face brightened. "Ah, I got myself so used to thinking Dib was an alien that an actual alien doesn't bother me. Actually," she reached across and tweaked one of his antenna, "I think you're kind of cute."

"Cute?" Saying that conjured up visions of the hamster Ultra-Peepi. "Are you going to start calling me disgusting diminutives and start addressing me in a little baby voice?" 

"Ew no!" Gaz reacted with disgust immediately. "I meant cute in a different way. I mean you got these big eyes and when they go round like they are now, well, it's cute. You remind me of Bambi."

"Bambi?"

"He's a deer."

"Oh. I take it then I remind you of a furry woodland creature."

Gaz laughed, which left him feeling very confused. "No! Not at all. Never mind, it's too complicated for me to explain." She reached over and touched his hand. "I'm really glad you're here." Her voice was very soft now and had a different feeling in it.

"Me too. I guess." Zim was trying to figure out why she was looking at him in that way. Probably easier if I asked. "Um, how come you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Touch my hand. You do that sometimes when you say something nice to me."

Gaz snatched her hand away fast. She hadn't even realized she'd been doing that! A red hot flush came to her cheeks the warm firelight covered up. "I-I'm sorry. I'll stop doing it if you want me to."

__

You have to open yourself to it. You can't watch this one, you have to live it and feel it.

"No. It doesn't bother me. I just want to know why you do it."

Gaz changed the way she was sitting. Defensively she held her arms close around her body, feeling like if she didn't do that, the rest of her would fly all over the place. "I, um, I don't know."

Zim tilted his head to the side, peering at her. "Don't know or don't want to tell?"

She shrugged. Then she laid her head on the table so her chin was atop her folded fingers.

Humans were so complicated. They didn't even understand why they did some things. Frustrated, Zim imitated her. Gaz suddenly grinned, inclined her neck forward and made their noses touch - well, touch where his would have been if he had one. She puffed her cheeks. "Boo."

Startled, he reeled back. 

Gaz did too. She seemed more astonished by what she had done than he did! "Sorry."

"What was THAT for?!"

"I was playing."

"Playing?" Zim stretched out the word a bit. "I know not of this 'playing'."

"Yes, you do. You used to go out at recess didn't you?" Gaz crossed her arms.

"I did." He scratched his head. "There are more ways to play than that?"

She nodded. 

A thought occurred to him. "Is tickling considered play?" 

Gaz turned her head and eyed him. What was he getting at? "Yeah," she replied warily as that scheming expression played across his features. Suddenly she gasped. "No! Cut it out!" But she was laughing too hard to really get what she was saying across. When he finally stopped, she rolled over on her side and clutched her aching stomach. "Where did you learn how to do that?"

"Gir." He looked really proud of himself.

She pushed with one arm to sit up. Her hair was messed up and she felt weak from laughing so much. "He's teaching you a lot isn't he?" As she spoke, she patted and smoothed her frizzed up hair back down.

"The basics mostly. It's kind of hard to get around all that gibberish." Zim panicked when she dove at him. "Oh don't!"

"Sorry, Zim. Newton's law."

"Newton's law?" he managed to gasp out, trying to fend her off. "Who's THAT? Oh stop!"

Gaz pinned him down, a devilish smirk on her often sour face. She was really enjoying this, both of them realized it at the same time. "Newton's third law of physics states that for one action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Whatsa matter Zim, didn't they teach you that at military skool?"

Did all the Membranes talk in that taunting manner or were all humans like this? He managed to grab her shirt and pull her down to the floor with him. Gaz let out a yelp as she fell. To make sure she didn't try any more, he hugged her arms to her sides.

"When I get free I'm going to destroy you."

He put on his best evil smirk to rival hers. "Then I guess I won't let you free."

"You'll have to some time." Her fast, ragged breathing heated his face and he blinked rapidly a few times. An idea hit her. "Like now!"

Then she kissed him.

Zim let out a startled yelp, let go and rolled away. Gaz was laughing hysterically, tears squeezing out the corners of her eyes. Why it always worked, she never knew.

The alien got up and just stared at her incredulously. "You horrible stink-beast!"

Gaz just kept on laughing all the way to her feet, pointing at him. 

Zim growled and advanced on her. Gaz quit laughing and started to back away. "Oh Zim, c'mon! It was just a joke!" Fear leaped into her eyes when he didn't stop. "Zim, no, please. I'm sorry. If I'd known it would offend you I wouldn't have done it." When he still failed to stop, she screamed once and ran into the kitchen. While she tried to figure out whether to run out into the dark and wind or make a stand fighting with whatever rudimentary weaponry she could find, Zim caught up with her and pinned her arms to her sides.

Oh no. She let her weight sag as she squirmed. Her heart was pounding wildly and sparks of fear danced all throughout her body. Should have known better than to let her guard down around Zim even for as long as they'd known each other. Didn't she listen at all when Dib had talked about him? Didn't she see all the times her brother "suited up" to fight him? Thousands of times she'd been told about how manipulative and sneaky he was.

__

I'm going to pay for my ignorance with my life.

Gaz wrenched free and climbed on top of the table. The candle got knocked over. Thankfully it had already gone out so when it fell to the floor, there was no danger of fire.

Unfortunately Zim was right on her heels and grabbed both of her legs. She fell on her back and stared up in horror as Zim pinned her arms down and loomed over her.

She shut her eyes. This was it.

It came. But it wasn't what she expected.

His antenna brushed her forehead as he leaned down and gently kissed her where she had kissed him, on the mouth. It was chaste and quick. When he drew back, her eyes were open and she was staring at him with a strange sort of shock.

"Newton's law," he said simply.

"You call THAT a kiss?" Gaz grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close. When her lips met his, she just wrapped both arms around his neck. It took him a few seconds to catch up with her. He braced the table with one hand and sat up while she hung on to him.

She parted briefly to ask breathlessly. "How long have you been waiting to do that?"

"Shut up." He hooked her round the waist and answered her question.

"How long _I've_ been waiting?" he panted after they'd parted. "How long have _you_ been waiting?"

"Hey, buddy, sexual tension goes both ways!" Gaz objected. "Besides I've only started liking you like that only a few minutes ago!"

"A few minutes?" Zim said, sort of insulted. "Oh come on, you expect me to believe that?"

"No," Gaz snapped. "I figured you were too dense to figure THAT part out anyway."

"Dense?!" Zim eyes got hot. "For your information, everything I'm feeling right now is new to me!"

"New? How?" Gaz challenged. She really didn't know why they were fighting. "You said so yourself Irkens can't feel."

"Maybe others in my race do but not me!" Zim decided she needed to have something clarified. "I told you I was a mistake, Gaz. They tried to educate it out of me and I buried it but it doesn't mean it's not there! Why did you think I was insane all the time?!"

"What do you mean was?" It felt really good to say that for some weird reason.

"You really like pissing me off don't you?" Zim didn't bother letting her answer, he pulled her close again.

Gaz hooked her fingers around his waistline and gave him a piercing, intense stare. "You better be careful, Zim," she warned. "You'll be getting more than you bargained for if you go with me."

"I think I already know." He started. "What are you doing?. . . Oh my GOD." He sucked in his breath as she kissed him again. Long buried urges repressed for centuries started flaring up in him. When he reached up for purchase, she caught his hand and put it where she wanted it.

Eventually they made their way to the living room where things got out of control. It was the beginning of the end and only one of them would realize this when it was too late.


	4. It Happened Just Like That

A/N: This chapter deals more with how Zim and Gaz explore what happened between them. I'll put more Dib memories in the next chapter. There are a few here and there in this one though, after all, the absent party is what this story is really trying to be about.

***

That Night of the Same Day

The candles had long burnt out and the final remnants of the horrific windstorm had cleared out over an hour ago. The sky above that particular part of the world shone bright and clear, with the silvery orb of the moon acting as a headlight to those who sought its hypnotic image. It looked over a great big cemetery where stones of old mixed with the stones of new. Statues of angels and saints pointed directions toward heaven using a hand, a staff or a simple book. Some graves were shiny and polished, kept that way by the loving relatives who believed with some spit and a rag they were doing their duty in keeping the dead happy. These people would never admit to themselves that the dead couldn't care about such earthly concerns. It was beyond them - perhaps even beneath them - and for a bad word or for a good one, they remained dead. There were other graves too, graves no one brought flowers to. Graves of those who died in long forgotten wars and those who lived a life so long ago no one could possibly remember it anymore. However with all the wear and tear of the centuries, they all in some form or another, found respite.

But not all of them. There were those graves of people who died screaming in vain, begging the world to listen, their frustration echoing across the years. These people stayed alive, clinging to the living in a sense of moral outrage. 

Dib was one of them.

In the end, that had been his only enduring legacy.

How long has it been? Six years? Seven?

In the twilight hours before dawn, Zim stood before a small headstone. It was a sad little headstone, the type they made for children. He had to kneel down to peer at the inscription. He'd seen it enough to know it by heart but he still had to make himself read it every time he visited. 

DIB MEMBRANE 

1990-2002  
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER

"Pur Si Muove." - Galileo

"And still it moves," Zim murmured under his breath. He deposited a flower atop the empty grave. It was sad to see that among all the other grave markers in this section, his was the only one without a continual stream of flowers. Even in death Dib couldn't get a damn break.

Zim sighed and glanced at the grave beside his. Even after all these years, this one still gained a few flowers and various mementos.

DEBRA MEMBRANE

1969-1995

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

"Truth is the safest lie." - Proverb

Zim frowned when he spied something peeking out from beneath a bunch of flowers on her grave. A tiny little metal box. He knelt down and picked it up. Since there was no lock on it, he opened it for sheer curiosity. A frown furrowed across his face when he saw all it contained was a folded up piece of paper. Feeling like a horrible snoop but promising himself to put it back the way it had been, he unfolded it. It had a child's handwriting.

hi mommy, it's dib. didja know it was my berthday today? it is! gaz hit me again but i hit her bak! it was neat. daddy took me to the museeum. gaz complaned the hole way cos it was a long way. not me. i was a good boy cos you told me to always be a good boy. i am sorry i hit gaz cos she's a baby. i guess i am not good. but i try mommy i try so hard. i luv you mommy and i hop i see you when i die but i do not want to die yet cos i wanna wen i gro up to meet et. i no you say et is not reel but he is mommy he is and i will sho you. maybe he will b my frend and we will go to the moon and vizit you. by mommy I luv you.

-dib

Zim folded the letter and put it back. He looked up at the moon and then back at Dib's grave. "Guess I turned out to be a big disappointment, huh?" Zim kicked at the ground. There was a reason he came here tonight. "Look, um, I did something I shouldn't have done. At least I think I shouldn't have done." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know you wouldn't have liked it, that's why I'm here, I guess. I know I promised you I'd be there for your sister but I never thought. . ." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I never thought it would go this far. I feel horrible about it."

_"You don't have to feel bad."_

Zim heard the familiar voice and glanced up. Standing behind the grave with his arms folded over it was the Dib form. He appeared to the alien sometimes even though Zim knew it was only in his head and no one else saw him. The boy appeared as he did in life but with a glow surrounding him.

"But I do," he replied. "This never would have happened if. . ."

_"Torturing yourself with "ifs" isn't going to change what happened, Zim,"_ the Dib specter said. _"Look, I'm dead, so you don't have to feel guilty."_

"Then how come I do?" Zim shot back softly. "I know you said to live and feel human culture but there's got to be a limit somewhere. I-I'm not even sure if I ought to be disgusted with myself for what we did. I know you'd be."

Dib nodded and came around the stonehead. _"Yeah, I kinda have to agree with you on that. If I were alive, you'd be dead meat. However being dead gets rid of a lot of cares. So don't feel bad. Put it from your mind."_

"That's easy for you to say," Zim said sarcastically. "You didn't, um, do what I did."

Both invisible thought-form and visible alien began walking through the cemetery.

A look of disgust crossed the specter's face. _"Let's just not even go there, all right?"_

Zim nodded and then asked. "How can I face her again?"

_"How did you part ways?"_

"Well, um," Zim felt his face get warm. "She was asleep so I sneaked out here. But she seemed okay. I mean, she was asleep."

Dib peered up at him. _"Don't you think you should be there when she wakes up?"_

Zim shrugged. "I-I don't know. Should I be?"

_"It means a lot to a girl if she wakes up and she sees the last person she wanted to see before she fell asleep."_

"Do you think?"

Dib grinned. Now that Zim had gained a lot more perspective into the human race, he realized from a certain point of view, Dib had been a very endearing looking little boy when he wasn't smirking evilly. Genuine happiness became him. It just made his loss all the more disheartening for the alien.

"What do I don't know you're not telling me?" Zim inquired.

_"It's like I told you before,"_ said the Dib form. _"I only know what you already know yourself. Do what you think you should do."_

"But what if what I think to do is the wrong thing?" Zim said frantically, gesturing just as so. "I can't mess this up."

_"Well,"_ said Dib thoughtfully. _"Do you love her? And you don't have to empathic about_ _it,"_ he added dryly.

"I want to say yes," Zim confessed. "But I don't know what love feels like so how can I honestly answer that?"

Gaz's brother's form grinned again. _"How do you feel when you're around her?"_

"Good, I guess. But sad too. I keep getting this feeling from her she wants more than I can give. I don't like to say this but I think what happened tonight. . . ." Zim sighed. "It was like she was trying to get away from something else. I wish I knew what it was."

_"Did you ask her?"_

"No, uh, she wouldn't let me get a word in edge-wise." He felt his face get even hotter. Strange, this blushing phenomenon. He never knew he was capable of it. Zim put a hand over his face. "I don't know what to do."

_"Just be there for her,"_ Dib suggested. _"Don't stop being her friend. Always let her know you're there when she needs someone."_

"I'm trying, Dib, I'm trying."

His former enemy smiled again. _"I know you are."_

Then he faded away.

Zim panicked, like he always did. "No! Dib!" He clenched his teeth together. "Dammit."

Every time he "saw" Dib, he always feared it would be for the last time. The Irken hated the fact all this time had gone by and his enemy's presence had never left. Always there, every minute. Whenever he and Gaz talked or hung out somewhere, Zim always had the feeling Dib was watching them. Kind of like he was there with them, in the same room, silently relishing in his victory.

_"You can't hide forever and if you can then I can wait forever!"_

It was ironic, if you thought about it.

***

Morning . . . . . .

He was gone.

Of course he was gone, Gaz thought bitterly. I'd leave too if someone did what I did to him.

It was the first real thought that came to her mind when she woke. She sat up, holding the blanket around her torso. Her eyes fell on the evidence surrounding her and where she happened to be. It'd really happened. If sitting here in the middle of the floor wrapped to the nines was anything to go by, she figured this had been more than just some pipe fantasy.

It's all my fault, she told herself angrily as she got dressed. It would be madness to pretend she hadn't felt his obvious resistance. Even someone who'd never done it before would've sensed it. 

A deep sense of shame overcame her. She sat on the couch, pulled her knees up and rested her forehead on them. _What am I becoming?_

She didn't hear the front door open. When she glanced up, she saw him standing there.

Guiltily she looked away. "You're back."

"Yes. Guess I am." He sank down beside her. "How long have you been up?"

"Just a few minutes." She nerved herself and turned her head toward him. "Where did you go?"

"For a walk."

She said nothing, only nodded.

Zim rested a finger under her chin and tilted it up so their eyes met. She shifted her weight and hugged her legs. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head.

"Gaz. . ."

She held up one hand. "Don't."

"But. . ."

Gaz got up. "Look, what happened last night was. . . It shouldn't have happened. I didn't plan on it when I asked you to come over. You have to believe me."

"I believe you."

She kept on. "It's my fault. I took advantage of the fact you had no idea what was going on and used it for my own purposes."

"I knew what was going on," Zim interjected. "Isn't that how humans procreate? I watch TV you know. I'm not stupid." He looked mad.

"But I wasn't trying to . . ." Gaz rubbed at the space between her eyes, trying to think of a way to explain it. "Humans don't have sex to procreate anymore. I mean, we do, but for most of us having a baby isn't what's on our minds when we do it." She paused. "We do it because it feels good. So I guess I was using you to make myself feel better." Gaz took a deep breath. "It was wrong for me to do that. I'm so sorry, Zim."

Long pause. "But you feel better, right?"

Gaz gazed at him. Poor innocent clueless alien. "No. I don't."

"Why not?" 

Gaz sat next to him again. "Because we're friends and friends don't use each other like that. I never imagined in a million years I'd do that to you." Her head dropped into her hands. "I'm so sorry," she whispered again in a high-pitched way.

"Hey," Zim chided resting a hand on her shoulder. "Stop beating yourself up. It's NOT your fault. Nothing bad happened, okay? As I heard someone say once, it takes two. If I didn't want it, it wouldn't have happened. I am Zim and Zim never does what he doesn't want to do."

The old bravado made her spirits rise a little. Gaz never admitted it but sometimes she missed the old Zim, the one who acted like a power mad moron with a delusional superiority complex. If one were to go back to the past to compare them, one would find to their astonishment, these were two very different aliens. Time had been kinder to him, she thought morosely. It enabled him to explore so many new and different things about himself. While she stayed in one place watching it happen and falling behind. That's what had made him so seductive to her, that whole unattainableness. The fact he was from another world just added to it. She had wanted so badly to be a part of that and last night the desire had been so unbearable her body responded in the only way it knew how.

An uncertain smile tugged at her mouth. "I've noticed." Turning serious, she looked at him in full. "It never happened, okay?"

  
"Huh?" Zim was confused.

Gaz shook her head. "Whatever it meant to you, it-it wasn't the same way for me. What we did last night was the most dishonest thing I have ever been a part of. It wasn't even me."

"But Gaz. . ." Zim stood up when she did. "Does that mean you don't. . .?"

Gaz bit her bottom lip. She felt like crying.

When she didn't answer, Zim's expression changed. It was remarkable. In all her life, she had never seen him look so lost. . . so rejected. 

"No, you don't mean that." His face hardened and the old pride loomed up. He came close to her and put both hands on her shoulders. "You can't be saying that, Gaz, you just can't be!"

"I could." A lump formed in her throat. "I am."

Zim let her go and backed away. "Gaz, no. . ."

"I'm sorry," she kept fighting back the tears. 

"You're SORRY?!" he thundered waving his arms in the air. "You're SORRY you slept with me?"

"No. . ."

"THEN WHAT? TELL ME!" All the tyranny of the old Zim rose up.

Gaz's grief and shame turned to anger at the loud words. "Because you liked it! You liked it and I didn't! And I wanted to like it, Zim, I really wanted to like it."

Zim came up close to her and took her by the wrist firmly. The rage was still in his face. There was a sense of holding back. She decided to give him a channel to release it. Gaz pressed herself against him and whispered hoarsely. "Make me like it."

Shocked by what he'd heard, he gently pushed her at arm's length. All his rage drained from him. "You want me to. . . NEVER!" He backed away from her, fear rising in him. "Never would I do something so hideous to Dib's sister!"

"Why not?" she asked furiously. "Dib's not here right now. More for the fact he never was here even when he was alive!"

Zim couldn't believe what she had said. Neither did she although she didn't show it. "Don't say that."

"Why not?" Gaz wasn't angry anymore, just stating. "Don't bother defending him either. You guys died enemies, remember?"

"That may be true," he said in a low tone. "But I never stopped thinking about him. Not for a second, not for a year." Zim went to the front door and put his hand on the knob. He opened it and then looked back at her. "Every day I live is another day he wins. It's my curse."

He left, closing the door behind him.

Gaz stood there for a moment and then ran after him. "Zim! Wait!"

He was already halfway across the street. When he heard her shout, he stopped and looked back.

HONK! HONK!

Gaz stopped dead at the end of the walkway. 

A white Chevy was bearing down on Zim. The alien, fascinated and horrified at the same time stood as if frozen to the spot.

The driver slammed on the brakes and stopped just inches from running him down. Zim slammed both hands on the hood and yelled at the driver. "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING STINK-PERSON! ATTEMPT TO RUN ME DOWN AGAIN AND I'LL. . . I'LL SUE YOU!"

Then he looked back at Gaz.

Her whole face had gone completely white. Slowly she backed away and then ran back inside the house, slamming the door.

Ignoring the driver's run of insults, Zim raced back to the Membrane home and tried the knob. It was locked. He reached into his pak and grabbed a tool that disabled the lock. "Gaz!" he called entering, panning around frantically. "Where are you? Talk to me!"

He searched the house high and low until he found her in Dib's former room sitting in a corner. She was crying.

Zim knelt by her, reaching out and yet holding back, afraid to touch her. "Gaz, it's okay. I'm okay."

The girl looked at him, the tears running down her face. Whatever she saw she didn't like because her face crumbled and she started crying again.

He crept a little closer, mindful of her sudden lashes of physical rage that she sometimes dished out on him whenever he least expected it. "Gaz."

"It happened just like that," she said staring through him, almost robotically. "Just like that. I got mad at Dib because he was taking too long and I didn't listen when he told me to wait for him." She squeezed her eyes shut. "He's dead because of me."

"He saved your life," Zim said gently. "And it's not your fault."

She made two fists. "Yes it is! If I hadn't been so goddamned wrapped up in my own little world instead of paying attention to him when I REALLY needed to pay attention to him, he'd still be alive! So what if he saved my life? He had a hell of a lot more to offer this world. He loved life more than I did and he actually lived it while all I did was laugh at him for it!" Gaz punched the wall. "I hate him."

Zim's mouth fell open. "You don't mean that. . ."

"I do." She blurted out tonelessly. "I hate him because he threw his life away for nothing."

"He loved you!" Zim glared at her. "Your brother saved you because he loved you, because you were his sister. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if you'd died. He would've let me kill him, Gaz. What kind of victory would have that been for me? To crush an enemy who's already crushed? There's no honor there."

"So you're saying it's better he's dead than me?" Gaz said quietly, eyes lowered.

Zim shook his head fiercely. "No. What I'm trying to say is, he gave up his life because he saw something in you that you're refusing to see." He got to his feet.

Gaz followed him with her eyes. "What is it that I'm refusing to see?"

Zim shook his head sadly. "I don't know. But I know what I see." He smiled at her then. "And maybe it's the same thing."

A smile fought to come on Gaz's face and it almost made it out all the way. 

He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and left the room.

Gaz just closed her eyes and let her forehead gently bump against the wall._ I know what I see. What I know only what I can see and no one else can. And no one else will._


	5. The Water and the Sky

***

A Month Later (Monday to Be More Exact)

***

The picture jumped twice, displaying horizontal lines before registering a blur that sluggishly came into focus. A still shot of a darkened room sat dead center on an open window before panning around slowly.

"You're paying me, right?" spoke a young woman's voice off camera. "Twenty-five fifty." The camera swerved and ran steady on a young boy standing by a digital clock on his nightstand, setting his wristwatch accordingly.

Dib glanced up distractedly. "Yeah, yeah."

"Hey, I just want to make sure our priorities are straight," said the disembodied voice. "I don't want you to short change me." The camera panned down lower when Dib dropped on his knees to reach under his bed. "What are you looking for?"

"My stake."

"Your steak? What does a steak have to do with. . ." Dib pulled it out and showed her. It was long with a pointy tip. It was also made of wood. "Oh, a _stake_. Gotcha."

He grinned. "Just in case."

"We're going in the _middle of the day_, Dib. I don't think you'll be needing it."

"You never know." Dib got to his feet and brushed off his pants. He gazed around his room for a second and nodded, appearing satisfied. "Okay. I think I have everything."

"Do you have the twenty-five fifty?"

Dib looked right into the camera's eye. You could plainly see the annoyance on his features. "Yes, your Holy Goddess of Everything, I have your twenty-five fifty. If you quite badgering me about it, I'll give you thirty."

"Wee-hoo!"

At her enthused reaction, Dib simply shook his head in defeat. "Geez, I can't believe they sent me _you_ when I requested a cameraman!" He slung the duffel over his shoulder.

"I'm the best they got." 

Dib stuck out his tongue. Then he had a sudden dumbfounded reaction. His mouth fell open. "I can't. . . believe you just did that."

"Hey, I never claimed to be a lady."

Dib came right up close to the camera. "Cut the act, Agent Sky Fox, or I'll report you." 

The female voice laughed as it followed him out the door. "You really have no sense of humor, kid."

"Don't call me kid." Dib paused at the bottom of the stairs while the camerawoman remained somewhere halfway down the middle. "Look, this is serious investigative work I'm doing and I don't need this. Please act professional." Brief thoughtful pause. "Or at least _try_ to."

"Alrighty," she said playfully. "You're the boss."

Dib only grunted in reply.

The camera switched off briefly. When it came back on, Dib was standing in front of an old run down house in the middle of the forest. He looked at the camera and pointed to the debilitated structure. "This is the old Ottoman House on Spooky Lane." He smiled then, as if to make a joke and then shook his head. _Let's_ _not go there_. "Built by a Turkish family back in the early 1700s, it was abandoned during the 1940s cos of, well, a cockroach infestation. It had a brief resurrection in the 60s during the Vietnam War for those fleeing the draft until the authorities tossed in a smoke bomb. Ran those suckers right out." Agent Sky Fox chuckled as did the audience watching the recording. "Until recently no remembered it until rumors of a vampiric occupation began to fly about. That's why we're here, to see what's up with that."

"You sure it ain't Count CoCoFang?" remarked Sky Fox. "And is vampiric a word?"

Dib whipped around from where he'd been looking up at the house. "Hey! I _thought_ I told you no more jokes!"

"Sor_ry_."

There was bout of silence while both Dib and the camerawoman entered the house. It was a nothing-special run down place, mostly constructed of decaying wood and shoddy bricks. There was no furniture except the remaining pieces of an old couch. They searched all the rooms on the ground floor. Dib sometimes took out a magnifying glass to examine anything even slightly irregular to his personal analysis of what he considered the norm. 

Finally, Dib stood in the middle of what had once been a kitchen, scratching his head. "Ohhhhkay." His back to the camera, he turned to face it, a diffident expression on his face. "Want your money?"

"You mean it's not here?" Sky Fox exclaimed. "We haven't even tried upstairs!"

Dib brightened suddenly. "Oh yeah! Thanks." He looked embarrassed. "Some paranormal investigator _I_ am."

"Hey, you're young," the camerawoman said lightly following him back toward the stairs. "You think Fox Mulder became one in a day?"

Dib deliberated momentarily. "Maybe." He stopped by the stairs and got that familiar 'I'm going for it!' expression on his face. "Rest easy no more, Dracula! Dib's here!"

Then he raced up the stairs two at a time. Agent Sky Fox followed, muttering, "_The National Lampoon's Dracula_ _starring Dib Membrane_." Louder she called, "Hey, little boy! Wait up!"

The camera's image bounced around wildly until it caught sight of Dib standing outside an open room. There was a long, gravid pause. Slowly the camera advanced. Unmoving, Dib remained transfixed to the spot.

"What is it?" hissed the camerawoman.

Ever so gradually, Dib turned his head and ever so gradually he raised his arm and pointed into the room. "There's a coffin in there." He said it the way you or I would have said, 'There's more milk in the fridge.'

"Neat!" The camera bounced close and then pointed into the room. Under the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the roof, a black oblong coffin sat smack dab center in the middle of the room. "Hey, look at _that!_ You were right!"

Dib grimaced. "Hunh." The tone of his voice suggested he didn't altogether trust what he was looking at. He grabbed up the stake and crooked his finger at the camera. "Follow me."

"Okay. Why are we whispering?"

"I don't know," Dib whispered back. "Maybe because I think we're on to something. Hold there." He put his hand up. "I'll check first."

The boy crept toward the coffin. Stretching out his arm, he used the stake to lift the coffin lid. Coming closer, he peered down. Quickly his head snapped around, his eyes bright and shiny. "Holy shit, there's a real live sleeping vampire in here!" Excitedly, he gestured for her to bring the camera over.

Obligingly, the camera came in close and pointed down. Right there in its coffin in the classic slumbering pose of the blood-drinking creature of darkness, was a vampire. A female vampire with long blonde hair with the palest complexion ever seen on a human being lay in repose. She was dressed all in black from head to toe. Dib reached in and gently depressed her cheek with an index finger.

"Yep. Cold as ice. She's dead." He couldn't be more absolutely thrilled. Happily he smiled at the camera. "See? Toldja there was a vampire in here."

"Nah-uh, show me the teeth."

Smile falling, Dib winced in disgust. "You want me to. . . All right." Resigned, he pulled back the vampire's thin upper lip. The sharp incisor teeth could be plainly seen. No question about it at all, there was a real vampire living in the Ottoman House. "Convinced?"

"Yup." The camera held tight on the vampire's sleeping form for another few seconds. "You wanna slay her Buffy or shall I?"

Dib shook his head and put the stake away. "Naw. Then this proof wouldn't be valid. Besides it's cowardly."

"She drinks blood, Dib."

"I know," he insisted kind of weakly. "But she can't help it. Let's go."

"She's a real babe, Dib," laughed Agent Sky Fox. "You men are all alike. From the cradle to the grave." 

"Oh be quiet." He gestured to the coffin. "So ends my investigation. Are vampires real? You bet they are! Agent Mothman, signing off." 

"That was so lame. Can I have my thirty now?"

Dib sighed and dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a few dollar bills, counted and handed them to the camerawoman. "Thanks for doing this," he said sincerely. 

"It's nothing. I'm just doing my job, kid."

"Well, thanks anyway."

"No problem. And hey, if you need someone again, call me. Although I ought to warn you my fee for service goes up when . . ." Agent Mothman grinned evilly, reached out and covered the camera lens with the palm of his hand. "HEY!" 

The picture skipped and went to black.

***

After the last video ended, Gaz stood up and stretched. She glanced at her watch. "Aw damn. I gotta go."

Zim remained where he was. He tried not to let on how disappointed he was when she'd stood up. It's been kind of nice having her sitting there beside him. A chill rushed in when she vacated the spot. One eye went to a window. Pitch black outside. Had they really been watching the tapes all afternoon?

"What time is it?"

"After ten." She retrieved her coat, graciously handed to her by Gir when she reached for it. "Thanks."

Zim moved to get up. "I'll walk you home."

__

Yes, walk me home. Instead Gaz flicked her wrist out in dismissal. "Nah. I have to stop off at my job to pick up my paycheck." 

Worry flooded his face. "Are you sure you don't. . .?"

"It's fine." She spoke perhaps too sharply and quickly. Trying to soften the blow, she added almost politely, "Thanks for the offer." _Why won't you argue? C'mon, insist on walking me home, _she plead silently_. COME ON._

He wouldn't play though. "Okay." He didn't look happy but he got up and opened the door. Gaz shrugged into her coat, slipping her hands into her pockets to make sure she had her keys. They jangled. The sounds were loud in the silence only the crickets in the night broke. 

Gaz zipped up her coat and paused at the door. _I want to say something._ Absently she ran a finger up and down the doorframe. _What is it though? I knew what it was a second ago._

"You can keep the tapes. I'll come by for them tomorrow."

He nodded, still holding the door. Watching her, he kept trying to ask her to stay. _Don't go, Gaz, don't go._ The words refused to come out. So he leaned in toward her. Catching the movement, she turned her head deliberately, pretending to check to see if she left anything behind by accident. "Um, I'll see you. I guess. Whenever." She gave him a two-fingered wave. "'Night."

Zim caught on just in time from making a blatant fool of himself. Feeling embarrassed, he only muttered. "Yeah." His eyes followed her down the walkway. _Whenever_. For a few moments, he watched her small form until it vanished into the darkness. Then he shut the door and leaned against it. When he looked up again, Gir was on the floor before him, peering up at him expectantly. A long time passed where the only true sound in the house was the ticking of a clock.

Softly, he spoke. "Why do I do it, Gir?"

The robot shrugged.

Zim made two claws of his hands and took a threatening step towards the tiny automation. "I'm ACTUALLY asking you!"

Gir started at his master's intensity and shrank back. "Um, because you love her?"

Zim glanced at the door. "Is that it?" he asked, almost wonderingly. Such a strange, simple sounding word used to describe a multitude of confusion and unbelievable agony.

__

For me anyway.

Gir shrugged again. "I love her," he tittered. He hugged himself. "I love her sooooo much!"

Wearily the Irken walked passed his robot. "I don't it's the same thing, Gir."

The little bot only took a stuffed piggy out of his head, a toy car and made the pig ride on top of the car. 

Zim stood by the entertainment center and raved. "Does she enjoy torturing me?! I can't think straight anymore because of her!" He growled and punched one of the video screens, cracking its surface. "I know she wants to pretend it didn't happen. I have to respect her wishes. But every day that goes by - ! God, Gir, you have no idea." He made another fist and aimed it at the video screen to the left of the cracked one. Taking his blind anger in check, he stopped just short of making another mess of glass on the floor. Instead he shut his eyes and tried to block it out. Ever since that forbidden part of him had awakened, he was having a hard time controlling its often powerfully intentioned urges. Being around Gaz only concentrated it, giving it unbearable strength, causing every impressible nerve in his body to wrack with deep-seated screams. Whatever was going on with her, he had no idea. Desperately he hoped her own body was abusing her mind the way his was. It would make a fitting intermediate for the sheer torment he had to endure.

__

Give me water. Give me a busload of humans. Give me a giant rampaging hamster of doom. Give me anything but this monster ripping and shredding what's left of me to teeny tiny pieces. I can't survive this. This is the thing that's gonna kill me.

Zim's antenna twitched, the only remaining outward sign of his agitation_. I have to conquer it,_ he thought picking up the remote. _I can't let these FEELINGS cloud my judgment. I mean, what kind of Irken am I if I can't control mere animal urges?_

Animal urges? I thought it we were calling it love.

Was it? Is it?

Outblown, he let out a huge exhalation. "I don't know. I don't want to think anymore." Pressing a button on the remote, he made the video switch over in his forty-seven tape changers. That way he didn't have to manually keep switching them, the changing system did that for him. He pressed play and went to sit down.

"Hello _Zim_."

The alien yelped and looked around wildly. "Huh? What?"

Gir glanced up from his play and pointed to the TV. "It's coming from there."

From . . . there? Astonished, Zim looked to the TV screen. Dib was sitting behind a desk, hands folded in front of him. He was staring straight into the camera lens. Almost as if he'd noticed he gotten his enemy's attention, Dib smirked. Even gave a mocking little wave.

He continued after a reasonable lapse of time. "I'm recording this on my computer camera. Isn't that cool?" Pause. "Well, I think it is." He stood up and braced the desk with both hands, leaning into the camera. "If you're watching this, I must be dead. There would have been no way you could have gotten this without me dying first. Either that or you're a lot better than I thought."

Gradually Zim sat down, staring intently at the screen.

Dib sighed and sat back. "Wow. I'm dead. I can't believe it. Either way." He blinked hard several times in disbelief. "Man. Sorry, it's just really not something I can comprehend at this point. Guess being a kid and all, death isn't exactly a concept that comes to mind a lot. Most of the time all I'm thinking about is saving the world and trying to prove whatever it is I'm trying to prove." The boy sat back heavily. "I don't even know anymore. All this," he grabbed up a bunch of photos, regarded them and then tossed them over his shoulder. "This BULLSHIT that I think is so important. It's making me lose sight of myself. Then I think, what's really important?" In mock frustration, he threw up his hands. "You know what, I have _no idea_. Saving the world, that's important. To some people. Like me," he raised his hand, "yes, little old Dib-worm. But the truth is, Zim, and I'm rolling over in my grave admitting this to you, but the truth is . . . . sometimes I don't care. Did you know my first impulse is to blurt, 'Fuck it, let him destroy the earth.'" He paused as if to let that sink in. "Does this shock you, space boy?" Zim shook his head. "It shouldn't, should it? Look at me," he spread his hands and pushed back his chair a little. "I'm this little twelve year old kid. I don't fit in and have to live with being called crazy 24/7. I might as well have the damn word tattooed on my big head!" Making a grunt of exasperation, he ran a hand through his hair. "It don't know if this makes a difference now. Am I getting through to you at all?" Dib squinted, as if peering through the past and into the future. "You're probably laughing. Pathetic human creature. That's all I am, aren't I?" His voice cracked on the last sentence. Catching himself, the boy rubbed at his nose. "I'm only one person, Zim." Dib got up and made a fist. "Do me favor for once. Stop toying with me. It's not getting any better. Don't you see it in my face? I'm tired of losing all the time. To you. To society. I've got no one but my sister and she hates me. Do you know what's it like to love someone and not have them love you back? Or at least love you in the way you should be loved?"

All too well, Zim thought.

Meanwhile on screen, Dib reached down and picked up a small orange bottle and rattled it at the screen. "You know what this is? This is a prescription. I'm on freakin' pills, Zim. I have a psychological disorder and without these pills, I'd be a lunatic. A real one. I can't brush my teeth without popping one of these once a night. I'm lucky my father hasn't had me committed already. But he won't do it." He put the pills down. "I asked him once, you know. Why we have to keep the fact I'm sick between us. He told me it'd ruin his reputation as a scientist. Supposedly if people found out he had a clinically proven nutso son, they'd think HE was probably a clinically proven nutso scientist." He grinned ironically, wagging his index finger back and forth as a thoughtful smile played across his lips. "Here's the kicker of it all, I mean it's really funny. Had I been able to tell everyone I was sick, I wouldn't have been mocked. I might even have gotten some sympathy. People would've been nice to me. Hell, I'm willing to entertain YOU might've even pitied me. Gaz doesn't know and I hope to God she never has to find out." Dib suddenly reached out to the camera, touching it. "Please don't tell her." He lowered his hand and his frail figure slumped in his chair. "I still don't understand altogether why I'm telling you this stuff. You're an evil space alien without a moral thought to scratch. On the off chance you aren't, then I guess I didn't die in vain. Or maybe I did. I don't know." He stopped. "I-I don't want to die." Dib kind of looked off into the distance. "I want to get past this thing, to peek over the horizon. I'd like to think maybe ten years from now I'll be doing something else. I'd like to have kids. Maybe a little girl like Ann, you know?" Dib smiled, going off into a dreamland Zim wished he could have seen. "Yeah, I think I would have liked that." He blinked slowly and his eyes cleared of the fancy. "I hope I'm not dead, Zim. Perhaps I'm being foolish. I hope I'm not. I'm not trying to beg for your sympathy either. I just want you to see the real me, however you judge me." He kind of shrugged. "However it turns out." He smiled then, his expression becoming almost introspective. "It was a really good fight wasn't it? Thanks for that. Whatever anyone else says, at least one of us can say the long haul was worth it in the end." Before he reached up and shut the camera off, he looked directly into Zim's eyes and asked, "So was it?" 

Zim stared at the rolling VDT for a long time. Dib thought he was dead. That earth-stink actually thought if he quit breathing and got buried six feet under that meant he was dead.

He closed his eyes and let the remote slip from his grip. The TV screens were all white static noise, filling the room with an unearthly glow.

***

__

Sure is cool out tonight.

Gaz walked slowly, her eyes half-closed against the breeze. Hot windblown tears warmed the corners of her eyes, blurring the world between blinks. Hunching her shoulders together, she watched the cars pass by. Soft swishing sounds of tires going through puddles, the water fanning out from their wheels. Traffic lights glowed brightly in the darkness, changing from green, yellow to red and back again. Late night shoppers scurried this way and that, into stores or cars waiting to pick them up at corner curbs. 

A group of kids she recognized from high skool herded by, calling out greetings to another herd coming from another direction. Neither group, some members of whom knew her, acknowledged her presence. She treated them with the same silent scorn, focusing instead on the red neon café sign five feet ahead. It said COFFEE SHOP and buzzed audibly with the electricity coursing through it. Entering the shop, she approached the counter, moving her eyes about in search of a familiar face. 

A young man came out from the back holding a steaming cup in one hand. 

"Hello Bobby."

Hearing his name, the young man smiled and headed her way. "Hi Gaz. Coming to pick up the bacon?"

She nodded. 

He winked at her. It kind of annoyed her when he did that. Bobby liked her. All the guys here did. What pissed her off about it was despite the rather antisocial way she treated them, they STILL gave her the same smile and respect the other nicer girls received. _Men are stupid,_ she smoldered. _Treat 'em like gum on your shoe and they still can't quit staring at you._

Bobby disappeared briefly into the back office and came out holding an envelope. He kind of played with her by holding it above her head. Tolerating his antics for a few seconds, Gaz played along, hopping a little trying to get it. Eventually the carefully contained sound of warning came from her throat. Hearing it, Bobby surrendered the check. "What're you doing tonight?" 

__

Brave, she thought considering him in a jangle of regard_. Somebody give this guy a medal. _Gaz shrugged. "Nothing much."

__

Doesn't want to talk, Bobby reflected. "Yeah, I hear you." He watched her leave. Turning to another guy who worked behind the counter, he commented, "God, I wish I knew what her problem was."

"How do you mean?" The other poured a pitcher of coffee into a container. "Oh her? Yeah. Gaz Membrane. I've known her since grade skool. Always been like that since her brother was killed."

Bobby stared at him incredulously. "I didn't know she had a brother."

The guy shrugged. "Yeah. He was in my class."

"Were you friends?"

His coworker smiled sadly. "Not exactly." He passed the container to a waitress. "Dib Membrane wasn't the kind of kid who had friends. Back then everyone thought he was crazy. Even me."

"Man. That sucks. How'd he die?"

"He got hit by a car saving his sister." Bobby's face furrowed in sympathy and muddled shock. "It was a damn shame."

Bobby looked in the direction Gaz had disappeared. "God."

"I know what you mean." The guy paused grabbing a broom. "The guy really was out there but he had a lot of life. Took most of everyone else's with him when he went."

"That's pretty deep, Torque."

Torque only responded with a half-hearted grin.

Neither boy said anything else for the rest of their shift. 

***

Gaz didn't go home right away. What was the point of sitting alone in the unbearably silent house staring at the four walls until she had to go to bed? Briefly she considered going back to Zim's and quickly decided not to. The state her mind was in tonight, she'd make the same mistake she'd made over a month ago. Sweet oblivion had its uses but it could never last forever.

Nothing lasted forever.

She wasn't blind. It didn't take an expert to tell the obvious signs. The alien was in love with her. Not like the guys at the café, she could tell from the way he looked at her it went much deeper than that. Gaz had never seen Zim want anything so badly in all his life. It wasn't the sex he wanted, Gaz reasoned reluctantly. He already knew that from what they'd talked about a month ago it wasn't something that was likely to happen again. No, if it was sex he wanted, he could have gotten that from her at any time. Gaz knew Zim like the back of her hand. If driven enough, the alien could get almost anything he wanted. Regardless of how much he'd changed, the natural instinctive ruthlessness was still a part of his personality. If prodded enough, it came out in all its vengeful glory. 

But he held back and she knew why. Gaz clearly saw without a question in her mind Zim respected and valued their friendship and held it in higher regard than his personal desires. She did too with a kind of steely resolve rarely exhibited outside of video games. Yet while she held on to the last shred of the one good, solid thing in her world, she felt it shaking. Conflicting thoughts and feelings scrambled around inside of her, chasing each other in circles.

__

I don't know what to do anymore. None of this makes sense. I had it all figured out until about a month ago. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. No regrets.

Right. No regrets. What a despicable joke.

__

They were sitting at the kitchen table. It was a bright late summer morning and the windows had been opened to allow the warm breeze in. Dib glanced up from his UFO magazine. "Don't you ever get sick of playing that thing?" he asked sounding irritated.

"No. Go away."

"You never want to talk to me anymore." 

"All you talk about is Zim and saving the world." A high-pitched electronic sound emitted from the GameSlave, punctuating her reply. "No one cares about that, Dib."

Dib sat straight up, waving his arms. "It's important! I still can't believe you, of all people, don't see that!"

"Shut up."

Dib narrowed his eyes at her. "You know I'm right."

"I don't care what you think I know. I just want you to leave me alone."

"But. . ." he protested quietly. "I don't have anyone else to talk to."

Finally she looked up right at him. "Talk to yourself. You're really good at that." Her voice was low and cold.

Dib stiffened and pushed back his chair hard. Unshed tears stood in his eyes. "I hate you." He stalked out of the room.

Enraged, Gaz put down her GameSlave and screamed after him. "YEAH, WELL, I HATE YOU TOO! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!"

__

Then three days later. . . Biting her bottom lip against the cold, Gaz took a detour off the main street. Some months ago she'd discovered an abandoned oil plant. Its spindly, spiky towers still sticking into the sky overlooked a wide lake. When she'd first come here, she'd been seeking the kind of solace strangely lacking in this city and to her immense surprise, she'd found it. No one came here at night so she had complete people-free solitude.

She craved it tonight. Just her and the lake. The water and the sky.

Settling on the shoreline beneath one of the erector set looking towers, Gaz drew herself together tightly. Her mind settled into a peaceful lull over the still water. The sky was so clear tonight, it reflected a double image on the water's surface. It was beautiful.

For many minutes she sat, thinking of nothing, listening to the distant sounds of traffic. Peace. True peace.

A steadily increasing commotion alerted her. Curiously, Gaz looked around until her eye caught movement on the side of the lake closest to her. A young woman was running along the shoreline. For a second, it appeared as if she were a late night jogger. The two men chasing her quickly changed her mind.

The woman cried for help when one of the men caught up with her. He grabbed her by her flying hair and tripped her. Gaz got to her feet, frantically feeling around for her cell phone.

Left pocket. Empty. Right pocket. Empty.

She watched in horror as the other man caught up and pinned the girl down. Her screams could be heard.

__

They're going to kill her.

Gaz scuffled around, searching wildly for something, anything_. C'mon. . . c'mon. . . think Gaz, think . . . There! Would that work? Yes. Yes. _Her hands wrapped around the length of metal pipe she found lying somewhere nearby. Hefting it, testing its weight, Gaz held it like a baseball bat and hurried. Her feet pounded the gravel, which crunched beneath her feet. The screams of the girl spurred her on, ebbing away any and all of fear. Nothing else mattered to Gaz right then except that woman's life. 

__

They're not looking. This is my chance.

Reaching the three, Gaz judged where a hit would be most effective. Bringing it down heavily, she struck the man pinning the girl to the ground between the shoulder blades. He grunted and toppled to the side unconsciously. Gaz turned to the other man, bringing the pipe up again. This time, though, he was aware of her and caught the pipe.

"Let go!" she screamed twisting it around back and forth. Her hands began slipping. _I'm losing my grip, I'm losing my grip. . ._

When the man's strength proved too much for her, Gaz stumbled backward. Automatically the man swung up and brought the pipe down. When she ducked instinctively, he missed her head and struck her collarbone. There was a sickening crack. A thousand splinters of pain wracked her body. All she managed to utter was, "Uhnh," before her legs buckled. Lying sprawled on the ground, she could only watch helplessly as the man spun the pipe up for another blow.

Someone caught it mid-swing. It was the young woman. In disbelief at her sudden resurgence, the man let go. After wresting it away, the woman wasted no time in whacking the pipe across his legs. He went down, collapsing in a moaning fetal ball of pain on the ground.

"Bastards!" Gaz faintly heard the woman scream. But she could have been whispering for all that she heard. It seemed ages before Gaz became aware of the woman kneeling by her. Cold fingers pulled back her coat. Faintly she heard a voice say from a distance, "I'm calling 911. Hang on, okay? I'll be right back. . . "

The rest of it was lost in a swirl of darkness.


	6. I Wish I Didn't Care So Much

***

". . . . Hey she's coming around!"

"Can you hear me?"

"She blinked!"

"Think that's good enough?"

"Yeah, probably."

"I don't know. Let me try this . . ."

__

"Get that damn light out of my eyes!"

"Yep, I'm convinced. Okay, people, on three!"

The ambulance doors slammed and the siren's wail echoed through the night.

***

Later. . . . .

***

"OW!"

"Sorry, miss."

Gaz jerked away from the attentions of the ever-too-concerned nurse. _Sorry my ass!_ "It hurts!"

The nurse, whose nametag simply stated TESS, held her hands away defensively. "Of course it hurts. You have a severely fractured collarbone. But regardless of how much it hurts, it needs to be bandaged!"

Gaz still shook her head distrustfully. Already in the hospital only forty five minutes at most and rather than waiting in the emergency room in agony, they immediately rushed her in for treatment. The rush-about hadn't given her time to prepare her head for the annoying ministrations of nurses who made a lot of wholly embarrassing demands. As far as Gaz was concerned, hospitals were nothing more than sick freak shows. Take off your shirt, take off your pants, don't move during the CAT scan, oh darn you moved we have to do it again, sit still while we ram this needle into your hip. No, no, of course it won't hurt. Drink this water, turn your head, stick out your tongue and cough for me. And when you had to perform even the simplest natural function, all of those white clad women with napkin shaped hats came running and waving their arms in panic. Don't go in there! Go in this thing! Oh you'll ruin everything! Gaz knew the whole nauseating experience from top to bottom. This wasn't the first time she'd been to a hospital and it wouldn't be the last.

"Leave it alone! It hurts too much to touch."

The Tess creature got a bitchy attitude for that retort. "Excuse me, miss, but you refused the morphine. You refused all painkillers offered to you."

True. Unhappy with the irrefutable argument, Gaz shut up. God, she wished there was something more interesting to look at. These blah white shades of her hospital room weren't doing a thing for her. If only she'd be conscious while they were bringing her in here she could have asked to be taken to the children's ward. At least the walls had colorful pictures on them even though they were of cartoon characters. 

"Go away."

"Miss. . . ."

All right, enough with this respectable address system. "Gaz. My name is Gaz."

"Gaz," Tess attempted once more at the gentle persuasion she'd started out using. "Please. It'll be all over in a little while and I'll go away."

__

If it'll get rid of her. Reluctantly, she put her good arm down. The nurse began working on her. Clucking her tongue, the nurse kept shaking her head. "You certainly are a difficult child."

She returned the favor. "You certainly are a difficult nurse."

Finishing with the gauze, the woman made a screwy face at her. "The doctor will be with you in a minute." She stood and started to leave the room.

"Hey wait!" Gaz called after her. "Why do I have to stay? Can't I go?"

"Sorry." Tess smiled tightly, trying to force as much motherliness into it as humanly possible. "The nature of your injury and circumstances in which you received it prevent us from releasing you. If you need anything, press the nurse's button." Opening the door, the nurse left, grinning to herself. Walking down the wing, the smile fell from her face and she muttered, "Brat."

Back in her room, Gaz relaxed against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "What the hell is she talking about? Doesn't anyone speak English around here?" Everything had happened so fast. All she could think about was the excruciating pain radiating from her neck to her chest and shoulders. She found herself wondering about her father. Where was he in all this madness? Would he come? Did he know she was in the hospital? Worry churned in her head. _I should call him, yes, hit the nurse button and tell them to call my dad._

There was a knock on the door.

__

Must be the quack. Resisting a moan of despair, Gaz painfully turned her neck toward it. "Come in."

The door opened a crack and a young woman poked her head in. Gaz performed a double take. Not just any young woman, it was THAT young woman. "Hello?"

Gaz wiggled her fingers on her limp arm in the best gesture of greeting she could muster. 

The woman smiled tentatively and closed the door behind her, unconsciously looking around the place before settling her eyes back on the pale girl in the hospital bed. She extended her hand. "I'm Bella." She looked Spanish although it looked like there was probably some Asian in there too. She was incredibly attractive. Like a model almost. 

"Gaz." She didn't returned the offered handshake, only gave a nod. Struggling to sit up, she added, "Are you okay?"

Bella rushed over. "Hey, hey, don't move. I got it." She elevated the bed for the young girl and then pulled up a nearby chair. "I'm fine . . . thanks to you."

Thrown offguard by the woman's unusual kindness, Gaz deliberately let all expression go from her face. "Yeah. Some dumb luck that was." 

Bella's smile fell, giving into the gravity of the situation. "Do you remember anything?"

Gaz thought. "A little."

"Good because you'll have to tell the police what happened. I already gave 'em a statement," Bella explained. "So all they need is yours."

Oh excellent. Cops. Gaz hated the cops. One too many times she'd been escorted home in a squad car for breaking curfew. Probably knew her on a first name basis down at the station. If things didn't go from bad to worse in another second . . . Gaz closed her eyes.

Bella mistook it as a sign of exhaustion, although it was half the truth. "But I told them to leave you alone . . . you know, till you're up to it."

Thank God for that at least. Gaz opened them again. "Those guys. What happened to them?" Simply mentioning them brought a new twinge of pain coursing through her. She winced.

Bella noticed and felt sorry for the girl. "They're here too though they've got cops guarding their butts. We hurt 'em too bad, hon. That guy you clocked is going to need physical therapy before he walks a straight line again. Same with the one I did in."

"Why were those creeps chasing you?"

Bella shrugged, getting angry with the simple motion of her hands. "Who the heck knows? I was just walking home from the ATM when they started chasing me. I thought by taking a short cut around the lake would ward 'em off. Unfortunately it didn't work."

Gaz eyed her. "You don't seem too upset by it."

"It's happened to me before." Bella settled back comfortably in the chair. "One of the downsides to living in a bad neighborhood is you get used to this kind of shit - pardon my language."

Gaz shook her head. 

"Anyway," Bella continued. "I'm sorry that bastard hurt you. I tried to stop him."

The young girl smiled weakly. "We can't all be Wonder Woman." Pause. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Bella shrugged. "Me too. Kinda wish I'dve gotten hurt too. That way I don't have to feel bad sitting here in one piece while you're a little broken doll in a hospital bed."

__

Broken doll? Indifferent to the comment, Gaz shrugged with her good shoulder. "I've been in the hospital before." _God, I want to get out of here,_ she added mentally. _This plastic smell is driving me crazy._

The young woman continued. "Well, I just came to make sure you're all right, well, you know what I mean. And to thank you again. Not for getting hurt but . . . oh, I am so bad with words." She smiled apologetically.

"Nobody's perfect." Gaz dismissed all of it. "It's nothing."

Bella stood and her smile became warmer. "You're such a modest kid." Unexpectedly, she leaned over and gave Gaz a kiss on the cheek. "I'll check on you later." Winking, she breezed out of the room.

__

Finally.

Gaz lowered the bed and met eye to eye with the ceiling again. _That was a nice lady,_ she thought. _She didn't even get nosy and ask me what I was doing out there in the middle of the night._ Fighting back a moan of pain (it was starting to get pretty bad) Gaz shut her eyes and concentrated on anything else BUT the intense throbbing. Rare these days to find someone who was truly grateful for the things you did in this world. Still even as grateful as she was Bella was all right, Gaz couldn't help wondering about her actions. Good Samaritan and Gaz Membrane weren't two choice phrases that went synonymously with one another.

__

I must be insane, she reasoned. _Those guys were huge and I'm barely bigger than a fourth grader. What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind . . ._ Simply put it was the human thing to do. But why did it have to hurt? Why did all the good things a person did in this world have to hurt so much? Even poor Ghandi got kicked around for all his troubles.

__

Excellent, she thought derisively_. I'm comparing myself to a historical figure who did a hell of a lot more than whack a punk in the back with a lead pipe . . . and he wouldn't even have done that anyway. Ugh. It's like doing nothing good hurts less than doing something good. I think I liked it when I didn't care so much. _

__

Damn it, she thought as she felt herself drifting off. _I hope when I wake up my spleen isn't missing . . ._

***

__

"Gaz, c'mon!" Dib shouted up the stairs. "We're going to be late!"

Gaz came down the stairs, her small hand sliding along the banister. Her usually narrow eyes opened up a little more when she saw the angry impatience in which her brother regarded her with. "Why do you have to have a mouth?" she asked peevishly, moving around him and heading out the door.

Dib caught the door as she tried to slam it closed. He followed her. "Look, sis, nothing personal or anything but if you've had as many detentions as I've had you'd understand." Pause. "No, wait, you do."

Okay, that was going too far even for him. Gaz whipped round and locked fierce snake eyes on him. Dib shrank back. Her message gotten across, she continued on her way with her older brother tagging along. God, she wished he'd go away . . . or make some friends at least so he wouldn't have to walk with her to skool everyday.

Meanwhile he kept chattering the whole way to the intersection. ". . . and then there's that picture of Nessie. I mean, it's a fake right? Compare it to all those other pictures, and you'd think . . . Wait up, Gaz. I have to tie my shoe." Dib stopped and dropped to one knee. Completely oblivious, Gaz kept going.

"Gaz! Stop!" Dib called after her sternly. "You can't cross the street by yourself!"

Gaz stuck out her tongue. She was feeling impetuous and she was still really mad at him for making her rush. "I can do whatever I want." To illustrate her point, she stepped off the curb.

"Gaz Membrane!" Dib yelled at the top of his voice. Several people in the area stopped what they were doing to stare. Even Zim, who was on the other side of the street heading toward skool, halted and stared at him. "Get back here!"

Ignoring him, Gaz started to cross. Eager at the prospect of doing it alone and not having to rely on anyone made her bold. She paused, figuring since there weren't any cars coming at the moment she could afford to do so. She smirked at her fuming brother who'd run to the curb and was glaring at her. She waved. See? the wave meant. I can do it. I don't need your help. I can do it all by myself.

Suddenly his expression went from one of annoyance to panic. "Gaz get out of the street! GET OUT OF THE STREET!"

"Why?" The inquiry stuck in her throat. Suddenly things started to change. The world lost its color and sound. There was a red sports car coming her way only in this colorless world it was dark gray. She could see the driver's eyes from where she stood frozen. They were wide and blue - the only hue that managed to emerge from the ashen world. Mutely, she was aware of a loud blaring noise accompanied by a high-pitched, insane shriek. Something hit her from behind, knocking her over. The smell of petrol and hot asphalt filled her nostrils as she rolled over its rough, almost sandpapery surface. Her whole vision filled with charcoal darkness. For a horrible second, she'd feared she'd gone blind.

Slowly she rolled over from her side to her back. Painfully she heaved herself up, propping her upper body with her arms. Groggily, she called, "Dib?" Her head was pounding and when she looked at one of her hands, it was bloody. So were her legs. One of them was stiff and a stabbing pain shot up to her hip when she tried to move. Blinking hard and shaking her head, Gaz looked around. "Dib! Where are you?"

The sports car had swerved off the road and crashed into a telephone pole. Glass was everywhere and steam was shooting up from the hood. The driver pushed out the door and fell out onto the pavement on his hands and knees. Someone rushed to his side. Gaz looked around again and then she saw her brother. He was lying several feet away, sprawled out in the middle of the road. His face was turned toward her despite the frighteningly large pool of blood forming beneath his head. He moved his hand, trying to touch her. "Gaz . . ." it came not as a sound but as a movement of his lips.

Understanding, Gaz forced her battered body to crawl toward him. She was barely aware of the crowd that was forming around them. The ambulance and the police cars arriving went unnoticed. All she had eyes for was her brother. "Dib!" she cried when someone knelt beside her and restrained her. "Dib! DIB! Let me go! DIB!!"

She cried his name until they loaded her on a stretcher. Refusing admonishments to lay down, she instead focused on the one taking her brother away. Unable to see him anymore, because of all the paramedics surrounding him, Gaz tried to jump off the stretcher despite her bad leg. A lady medic simply put her in restraints. Searching wildly through the chaos, she spotted Zim standing by the open ambulance doors to the vehicle they were taking her brother away in. For a moment their gazes met. His eyes were blank and emotionless. Hers were desperate and full of tears. Softly she mouthed, "Please." 

Almost as if he understood, Zim climbed into the ambulance containing her brother. Paralyzed by her own immobility, she could only watch as the siren wailed and pulled away.

"Where is he?" Gaz demanded. "I want to see him!" She struggled to get out of her father's arms but he refused to put her down. 

"Yes," her father agreed. "We've been waiting long enough dealing with your incompetent hospital staff! I want to see my son!"

The poor lady at the desk regarded the man and his hurt little girl with a degree of sympathy. She looked like she wished could tell them. Gaz didn't care about any of that. She wanted to see her brother and she wanted to see him NOW. Nothing else mattered.

"Professor Membrane?" A doctor approached them. "Are you the father of Dib Membrane?"

"Yes. Where is my son?"

The doctor gave a long-suffering sigh. "This is never easy. Professor, I'm afraid I have bad news." The man paused to take his horn-rimmed eyeglasses off. "Your son. . ."

Just then the double doors to the emergency room opened. Two harried looking hospital staff members were hauling a small green skinned person through the lobby. All that kept him from destroying everything with his bare claws were the humans hanging on to his arms. Gaz gave a start. It was Zim. He was yelling. "NO! YOU LIE! YOU LIIIIIIIIEEEE! LET ME GO, PITIFUL HUMANS! HE'S FAKING IT! HE'S GOT TO BE FAKING IT! YOU'LL SEE! YOU'LL SEE!!!!!!"

They let him go. Zim fell to his hands and knees right there on the emergency room floor. From the loft of her father's arms, Gaz stared in numbed shock. It took a long time for the image her eyes were seeing to reach her brain.

The alien was crying.

And then suddenly, she knew now. Knew the truth the nurse and the doctor had been trying to make them see without using the agonizing words to do it with.

Her brother was dead.

***

The Next Day in the Middle of the Afternoon . . . . . .

Zim exited the comic book store and then rolled his eyes, holding the door open as he did. "Gir, I said it's time TO GO!"

"Aw, but master!" the robot whined, his squeaky voice muffled by the head of his green doggie suit. He held up a plastic wrapped graphic novel. "I want this one!"

Zim snatched it up and squinted at the cover. "I don't think so Gir. It looks too violent."

"Violent is good!" Gir protested. "It's got lots of destruction and a really pretty girl in it!"

"A pretty girl?" Zim repeated, staring at his servant in complete bewilderment. He carefully undid the scotch tape enclosing it and slipped it out. Pretending complete disinterest, he flipped through it. His eyes bugged out at the carnage spreading out across the pages. "Gir, this is horrid! This character has no moral value whatsoever! Look," Zim showed Gir a picture. "See? Now can you tell me what this person is doing? Does that look heroic to you?"

Gir looked, shrieked and covered his eyes with his paws.

Satisfied, Zim flipped it shut. "Now put it back. I saw no pretty girl in there."

Gir opened it again when he had handed it back. "No pretty girl? Aww. No fair." He slipped it back in the plastic. "The hero must have killed her."

"Gir, what did I tell you . . ." Zim sighed and used his index finger to rub between his eyes to ward off a headache. "Heroes aren't supposed to kill the pretty girl." Sighing, he just waved Gir away. "Just put it back, okay?"

"Kay!" Gir skipped back into the comic book store. Faintly, Zim could hear Gir tell the comic book guy what he'd said. After a minute, Gir came back out. "That guy says you're weird."

"So is he, selling crap like that." Zim reattached the leash and tugged Gir along. "C'mon, we have to go."

"Why?" Gir whined. "You said we could have fun today! And the day before that and the day before that . . . "

"I get the picture, Gir."

"So why do we hafta go? I wanna have fun right nooooooow!" Gir woke up cranky this morning. He usually got like this after consuming large quantities of pizza the night before.

"We have to go," Zim said very patiently. "Because remember that little device I stuck outside of town? Remember that pretty little thingy I stuck on that tree? I have to go check on it to make sure it's still working." He was talking about the monitor he'd invented to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. With enough data on how much air pollution was affecting the plant life on earth, he could work out a way to possibly reverse that. Now that he'd personally adopted earth as home, Zim felt an obligation to try to save it. If an Invader could conquer a world, couldn't he use the same amount of might to save it?

__

Oh the irony. I used to scream, "This place is just begging to be destroyed!" when I really should have been screaming, "This place is just begging to be saved!"

__

Better late then never. I guess. Maybe. Zim paused to untangle the leash from around his ankles. 

"Master?"

"Hunh." The entanglement wouldn't cooperate. "Gir go around me again . . . No, the other way."

"Kay." The robot did. "Master?"

"What?" There. Got it.

Gir wiggled his little tail. "Why did you cry?"

"Huh?" Zim glanced at him. 

"Last night." Gir scurried to keep up with the Irken march. "You were crying."

His pace didn't falter. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied stiffly. Zim preoccupied himself with reading street signs.

Gir frowned, put off by the denial. If master said he didn't do something when it was perfectly clear it went opposite to the robot's knowledge of what he knew to be true, he became very much confused. So he persisted. "But you did! You cried! I saw you! I diiiiiid!"

Abruptly, Zim pulled the leash hand over hand until he and the little bot in a dog suit were face to face. "Drop it, Gir."

Gir shrank back. "But you . . ."

"Drop it."

Recovering, Gir smiled like an idiot. "Kay! Can I have a cupcake?"

Relieved in so many ways, Zim managed a weak grin. "Yes."

"Yay!" Happy again, Gir clapped his paws together and settled into a cheerful, skippy gait. Visions of his favorite food item danced through his head and he forgot all about his master's odd behavior. Over the years the droid had faintly noticed Zim had grown less and less amused by his antics. He was more prone to sulking than screaming, spent hours reading thick fat books instead of hunching over a computer designing strange bizarre weapons. He'd spend a lot of time quietly observing things and making little notes on an Irken notepad. The most notable thing that stood out to the mostly oblivious droid was Zim's changed attitude toward humans. Except when frustrated or angry, he addressed them as equals and more often than not acceded to humans who exercised authority. Sometimes he even fell over himself apologizing to the mailman if Gir succeeded in eating off part of the guy's shoe.

Most of these huge changes Gir took note of consciously and just accepted them without question. Master was master and that's who Gir loved. He actually liked Zim better now because he treated him more like a two year old and stopped ordering him to do things all the time. Except when he was being bad. 

Leaving Gir to his inner oblivion, Zim casually took note of the newsstands. One of them bore a headline that drew his eye. Mostly because of the huge black letters.

****

LOCAL TEENAGER AIDS WOMAN, ENDS UP IN HOSPITAL

A smaller headline beneath it read:

**__**

Suspects in custody

Some nagging notion in him told him to pick it up. Zim found a bench to perch on after paying for it and read the article.

****

Around 10:46 p.m. last night, Bella Lopez, a 27-year-old woman, was attacked by two men. She had been heading home after withdrawing from an ATM machine when two men began chasing her. They pursued her to the old oil refinery near the Really Deep Lake. "They grabbed my hair and tripped me. One of them sat on me. I thought I was going to die," Ms Lopez stated to police. According to her own eyewitness account, a young teenage girl appeared armed with a weapon later identified as a lead pipe. Reportedly she struck the first man assaulting Ms Lopez before being overpowered by the second man who wrested the pipe away from her and used it to break her collarbone. Ms Lopez then in turn overpowered the man and called 911. Both men, John Herman TohaMor and J.V. Mercer, are at the General Hospital under police surveillance where the teenage girl, whose name cannot be released because of her age, is being treated. The men were charged with attempted rape, attempted robbery and assault of a minor. "She was an angel," Ms Lopez said of the teenager. "It's just not something you could ever hope for. I don't even care why she was out there so late at night. The simple fact was she was there."  
A further investigation into the assault is still pending. – reporting by JOANNA HILL

"What IS this planet coming to?" Zim muttered closing the paper. "Hmm. Gaz works near the oil refinery. She would have been around at that time. . ." A feeling of dread came with those words. Quickly he hopped to his feet. "Gir, I need to check up on something. Do you think you can make it the rest of the way home by yourself?"

Gir saluted. "Yes my lord!" Without a second provocation, he turned on his jets and rocketed across town. A lot of humans saw him but barely took notice. That was the wonderful thing about these creatures, Zim thought. _I can do all this weird stuff and nobody cares. _

__

Sometimes I wish they did.

Shaking off those distracting thoughts, Zim started running in the direction of Gaz's house.

__

For just once I hope I'm wrong about this one.


	7. The Past Catches Up

***

If there was one thing Zim took pride in anymore was his impeccable ability to maintain his cool. He liked to think he had matured enough to be able to deal with the often crazy and intolerable twists and turns his life seemed to revel going in.

After about an hour of searching failed to detail any explanation into the whereabouts of Gaz, Zim feared he was going to lose hold on that last good grip on that which he sought pride in.

Not at work and she wasn't at home. Zim had taken the liberty of conducting a 'home invasion' and discovered the Membrane home to be quite deserted. Not even the professor was in which in it of itself wasn't so unusual.

Feeling at a loss, Zim wandered passed Gaz's empty room and the one next to hers, which long ago had been converted into a guest room. Of course, they never HAD any guests, which made its existence and use questionable. 

He made pause to peer at the golden fish swimming around in its bowl. "Now which one are you? Tak the Fifth or Tak the Sixth?" he said to the large eyed orangey yellow creature. _I'm talking to a fish,_ he shook his head. Beside the goldfish bowl was a telephone and small white machine. 

What was it called? An answering machine? _Wait, there's a button._ Zim stared hard at the letters, trying to figure them out. "Play back mess-a-ges," he dragged it out. "Oh!" He hit it. Maybe this would give him an idea. 

"Hi, Gaz, this is grandma. I know we haven't talked in a long time so I just thought to give you a call. Take care, m'bye."

"She has a grandmother?" Zim murmured. He didn't know that. It made sense. Gaz hardly talked about her family. 

"Professor Membrane, those samples you ordered came in. I don't know what you wanted us to do with them. I know you're probably already here anyway when you get this but I just wanted to give you an FYI. Bye."

Zim made a noise of disgust. There were a lot of reasons he didn't like to voice but Gaz's father irked him to no end. 

The next message made him grab both sides of the table.

"Hello, Professor Membrane, this is Doctor Hal from General Hospital. Your daughter, Gaz Membrane was admitted to the ER last night around 11:23 p.m. with a severely fractured collarbone. She was unconscious when she was brought in and became conscious shortly thereafter. I've been trying to get a hold of you since she was admitted but you returned none of my calls. Due to the severity of the injury, she needs to be kept for a week at least. Please come as soon as possible. Your daughter has requested to see you repeatedly. If you need to reach me, I'm at (387) 182-3737."

"It WAS her!" Zim shouted to no one in particular. "I _knew_ it!" His boot came into contact with the table, jarring it enough so that some of the water in the fishbowl sloshed over and landed on his arm. "OW!" He grabbed at it and clenched his teeth together. "Shit."

Trying to ignore the burning pain, Zim left the house. He paused at the end of the walkway, scratching his wig. "Hmm, I wonder where the hospital is?" he wondered out loud. Helplessly he looked around and spotted a young boy of about thirteen playing basketball in his driveway next door. He had carrot colored hair.

__

What the heck.

"Hey you," Zim approached the boy. "What's your name?"

The boy caught the ball and was about to throw it again. He lowered it when he saw the Irken approach him. "Roy. Hey, I know you. You're that alien my babysitter used to chase."

__

Babysitter? Zim didn't have a clue what this boy was talking about. He couldn't bother to ask about it. "Sure whatever. Do you know how to reach the hospital?"

"Sure." Roy put the ball down and kicked it into his garage. "Want me to show you?"

"That would be a help."

Roy grinned. "Cool. Oh but wait, I have to take my sister with us. Would that be a problem?"

"No."

The human went into the house through a door in the garage and yelled. "Ann!" Pause. "C'mere!" Another pause. "Because I have to go somewhere and you have to come with me . . . No, don't worry, it'll be here when you get back . . ." Roy glanced over his shoulder at the impatient alien. "Sorry. It's hard to get her to put a book down."

Ann appeared. She looked about nine or ten. She had dark red hair, which she kept in a long braid. Spying Zim, she squealed, "Oh it's the alien! Neato."

"Neato?" Zim repeated, more than slightly confused. He had no idea who these human children were nor had he ever met them. How did they know who he was? They also knew what he was, much to his surprise. Neither seemed particularly disturbed by it either.

Roy sensed his confusion and explained. "Dib used to baby-sit us when we were little. We heard a lot about you, naturally." 

__

Okay, that made sense. Suddenly Zim glanced at the young girl. "Your name is Ann?"

She nodded, smiling. She was a really cute little thing. "Yep." Looking him up and down she made a bald assessment. "You're really tall."

"Uh, thanks." Honestly he didn't know what to do with small human children. Especially this girl who stared at him in wide-eyed fascination. Both of them did, the girl more so than her brother.

"A lot taller than you used to be," Roy chimed in. "Oh well, I guess aliens ain't all that different from humans in that department."

Zim peered at him suspiciously. "How is it that you two know so much about me?"

"I told you, Dib talked about you." Roy kicked a rock into the street gutter. "Plus we see you hang out with Gaz a lot."

"She's pretty," Ann piped up. "One time she had really long hair. Like that!" She touched her back halfway down the middle. "But then she cut it."

Zim thought a moment. "So you know I'm an alien?"

They both nodded.

"Dib never said anything about you. I didn't think there was anyone else like him."

Roy smiled sadly. "Yeah. The poor guy never had any credibility so what were the beliefs of two children for him?" The kid shrugged. "It might've helped him, you know. I think he was just too ashamed of himself to drag us through the mud even if it wound up making him look good."

Ann sighed. "He was so cute." She lowered her voice and whispered to Zim in what she thought a whisper, "I kissed him once!"

"Puh-_leeze_. It was on the cheek," Roy interjected dryly. "And you were only four, Annabelle." He looked at the alien. "Okay, listen." The boy pointed down the corner. "Keep going in that direction. The hospital is just to the right of the interstate. It's a big brick building, you can't miss it."

"I don't plan to." Zim walked on ahead. "Um, thanks." He paused and looked back at these children. These strange children from Dib's past who had loved the boy unconditionally. They even knew Zim was an alien and hadn't thought twice about it. Why hadn't Dib ever mentioned them? The answer came easily. The old Zim would have found a way to use these innocent children against him, tapping into their place in the boy's heart as a weakness. They had been one of the many secrets Dib had had to guard ferociously.

__

What a horrible life. Zim headed in the direction of the hospital without watching the children turn around and go back home_. Having to keep his allies in secret and his sickness from his own sister._ Dib had had so many burdens, so much that he'd wanted to share with someone.

__

Even me. His worst enemy. Underneath that maddening obsession to expose Zim to humanity, there had lurked a part of him that wanted a friend.

__

We didn't even give each other a chance. 

The hospital appeared.

Zim took a deep breath. _Please._ He couldn't live through this again. Gaz was everything. If he didn't have her, Zim knew on this planet there was nothing else he had left.

***

That Evening . . . . . . . . .

Her father came.

Gaz and Bella were in the middle of talking. Or rather, Bella was talking and Gaz was just listening. She didn't mind listening, Bella had so much to say and each topic came attached with its own fascination. Bella Lopez was an artist who originally came from Mexico when she was only five years old. She married an American painter and settled in the shabbiest part of the city where walking at night was a public health risk. Not that she minded, the apartment they lived in was beautiful and clean. The deck view of the city was spectacular, providing many landscaping opportunities. When not painting, she worked for a company that sold copy machines. Her favorite past times included shopping, knitting and raising gerbils.

"Gerbils?" Gaz repeated. "That sounds like a strange hobby." _As compared to what? Chasing UFOs? Video games? I sure know how to shut myself up._

Bella only smiled. "Mean little suckers but cute as hell. Want one? Mine just had a litter."

"No thank you," Gaz replied. "My goldfish is a handful."

They laughed.

Tap. Tap.

__

Crap. Gaz rolled her eyes. "Oh no, don't be another doctor." _If that's another doctor I'm taking this needle out of my arm and putting it through his eye. Then I'm going to laugh evilly, pointing at him while he screams. _

A familiar goggle-faced man with a scythe wearing a white lab coat with a pushed up collar poked his head in. "Hello? Is this Gaz's room?"

Gaz raised her good arm. "Right here, Dad." With her father, you had to gesture when you spoke to get his attention or you didn't exist.

Bella smiled cordially at him and got up. "Hello, Professor Membrane." 

The Professor stared at Bella until she stuck out her hand. Slowly he shook her hand. "Hello."

Gaz bit her bottom lip. _Yep. Smitten on sight._ Dad needed to get out more often.

Bella finished shaking the man's hand and turned back to Gaz. "See you kid."

"Bye Bella."

After Bella left, the feared and dreadful awkwardness filled the room. Gaz had mentally been preparing for something like this so she built up a wall so it left no room for all those feelings of disappointment she wouldn't be feeling.

The Professor tried with what he was good at, a friendly opener. "Well, I see you're doing well."

__

Doing well? Nice joke, Dad. Gaz didn't reply.

He cleared his throat and parked it in Bella's chair. "Um, how is . . .what did you break?"

"My collarbone. I didn't break it, someone else did." _Okay, I'm letting that pass on account I'm so gauzed up you can't tell WHAT got broken._

"Ah yes. They were arrested." Membrane nodded, trying to remember everything he'd been briefed upon. "I heard what you did for that woman, um . . ."

"Bella."

"Bella," he finished. "That was. . . well, that was brave."

Gaz shrugged with her hands. "Anyone would've done it."

Membrane sat quietly, trying like hell to think of something to say to his daughter. Frankly he had no idea. He didn't even know her really and that was in deepest inner shame.

"Um," Gaz began, saving him the trouble. "How long ago did you find out?"

"Just this morning. Your doctor left a message on the answering machine."

Gaz frowned. "If you knew about me all day, why didn't you come right away?"

"I had to work."

Had to work, had to work, had to work. Instead of nodding passively like she used to do all the time. Instead of bowing under the spoken-as-if-on-high phrase 'the world needs me.' Instead of accepting the excuse it was putting a roof over her head and food on her table, Gaz did something else. She did something else entirely.

"I'm more important than work, _Daddy_." 

Membrane kind of sat back in his seat. It scraped softly over the floor. These were the only two signs of his astonishment. 

Gaz went on. "I'm more important than test tubes, beakers and chemical formulas written on blackboards. I could have been murdered, _Daddy_. Have you ever thought of that?"

He had. But he only nodded.

"You have?" Gaz faked astonishment. "Oh my God, I'm over in a barrel. Come on!" She quit the act. "I'm the last thing you think about when you leave the house. Or, I'm the only thing you _don't_ think about when you leave the house."

"I think about you." Membrane wanted to tell his daughter she was all he ever talked about in the lab but he afraid she wouldn't believe him. In fact he knew for certain she wouldn't believe him.

"Sure as hell act like it." Gaz was in no mood to be sympathetic or gentle. She longed to hurt him, really hurt him in all the ways she'd suffered yet she held back. _Don't kick a man when he's down. Don't kick a man when he's down._ "I'm in a lot of pain right now."

Membrane started to rise from his chair. "I'll get the nurse . . ."

"No." She gave an inward shiver. "I can take it."

"Honey . . ."

__

Why's he using pet names all of a sudden? "The drugs they use make me sleepy and I've slept enough for three people. I'm got a morphine line right here anyway." Gaz elevated her bed. If she lay down too long, her chest would tighten and breath became too hard to draw. She stretched out her hand to him. "Stay, okay? Please?"

Slowly her father sat down again. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"All right." Membrane leaned forward and looked at the floor. He looked nervous.

Gaz desperately wanted her father to do what came naturally to fathers. Kiss on the cheek. Hold her hand. Half-assed hug. SOMETHING. Gaz tried to encourage him by extending her hand again. Seeing it, her father tentatively took it. He appeared to relax when a residual smile came to her face.

"It's not that hard, Dad."

Membrane let go after a minute or two. Say it like it is. One of us is dying to and it might as well be me. "I'm not a good father, Gaz." 

She wanted to deny it like any daughter would have. But she couldn't. It was the truth. So rather than speaking, she only nodded reluctantly.

"Aside from your statistics and exam scores, I don't even know what your favorite color is."

"It's purple. Want to know anything else?" Gaz refused to make this into a heartfelt experience. "Like what was I doing out in an abandoned oil refinery in the middle of the night? Or, hey, do you even know I have a job?"

He looked up. "You have a job?"

"Yes. I work at the café near the place where Bella was attacked. I was picking up my paycheck. But of course, you wouldn't know that."

"How could I, you never . . ." Membrane paused. "You did, didn't you?"

"Several times. Do those little sticky notes 'At work. Be back at 10' mean anything to you?" His daughter shook her head. "Dad, I've been standing at the threshold to the kitchen telling you all the pivotal shit that's been going on in my life for the past six to seven years and you never even bothered to turn around."

Struck, her father only lowered his head.

"There's a lot about me you don't know, Dad. A lot your brain probably wouldn't even be able to handle." Gaz kept her voice steady. "I smoked from fourteen to fifteen and quit cold turkey the following year. I got mono in tenth grade and missed a lot of skool. If Zim hadn't brought me my homework, I would've had to repeat the whole damn year. Oh and did you know, I'm not even a virgin?"

Membrane jumped to his feet. Finally he knew what to say. "Enough. I get the picture, okay?" 

Gaz waved it aside. She was sorry she'd mentioned anything. Her mouth had gotten away from her. Once the leak gets sprung, it's hard to stop it up again. "If I didn't tell you, you wouldn't have even have known anything happened to me. I'm just there. Taking up space while you do more important things."

There was an explosion and Membrane found his tongue. "Honey, I'm sorry. I'm not the father you deserve. You probably even hate me. Considering your condition it DOESN'T surprise me." He stopped and sighed. "You don't think I have feelings?" He made a fist, concentrating his anger into it. "Well, I can't afford to! I'm a scientist and scientists must remain detached!"

Gaz was aghast. "You can't afford to _love_ me?"

The professor lowered his fist. "That wasn't supposed to come out that way."

"Well, it did."

Membrane couldn't take this anymore. He started to back toward the door. "I'm sorry. I wish I could make it up to you but I . . ."

Gaz panicked. "Please don't leave, Dad! Please!" The pain was coming back.

Professor Membrane gazed at his daughter, trying to find the answer in what he considered a superior and intelligent mind. Trying to find some way of saying and doing something to prove to his only child he loved her despite everything to the contrary. The horrible blank he came up with frightened him, dismayed him. Shamed him. Rather than expose himself for the disgraceful, bitter man he was before his daughter, Membrane opened the door and left. The cries of his daughter behind him went unheeded.

Alone again, Gaz closed her eyes. In the few short years of her life she'd lost her mother, her brother and now she'd lost her father. Sure, he wasn't six feet under but he was buried in his work. Hiding from his grief. Hiding from his guilt. Hiding from his daughter.

Then a sudden, violent realization came to her. 

__

I've lost my family. I've lost my whole goddamned family.

Oh Jesus. She couldn't take the pain anymore. Gaz grabbed the morphine IV and squeezed it.

***

Zim couldn't get into the hospital during the daylight hours nor did he try to hassle in by visitors' hours. Ridiculous, these visiting hours. How dare medical professionals deign how long a patient ought to see the people he or she wanted to see? What if seeing a person at any given time contributed to a patient's recovery and the deprivation of this visitor made he or she even sicker? Downright absurd the human way of running things. Just because he had lived on Earth for almost seven years didn't mean he fell in love with the entirety of human culture.

No matter. Not many humans did either so being an alien made him no exception to the rule. 

So he waited for the hospital to 'close' for the night before sprouting spider legs and go wall crawling outside the building. Before he'd went ahead with his plan, he found out what floor she was being kept on, what room and which outside window was hers. Not all of this information had been easy to obtain either. Most of the hospital personnel were put off by his eccentric behavior (and not, he realized, his green skin color and lack of ears) and refused to divulge even a smidgeon of information. Rather than threatening and making the usual scene, he pulled the information from their computers using an Irken device made especially for draining information from primitive technology. All he did was put it on the palm of his hand and place it atop a terminal. Of course, he'd had to invent a reason for standing there with his claw in one place. (It took approximately three minutes for the procedure to finish).

The nurse had been pretty. So while the thing did its draining, Zim put the biggest bit of play-acting he'd ever played on. He'd flirted with her.

He shuddered in disgust thinking about it. Ugh. If it was enough he already decided to treat humans as equals, it was too much when he started taking on some of their rituals. But what could he have done? He'd panicked and it was one of those it's-so-insane-you-know-it'll-work kind of plans that usually jumped out of his brain at any given time.

Unfortunately its pay-off was a little too successful. The nurse had just eaten up his attention and when the device vibrated to indicate it was finished, he quickly removed his hand, issued a, "Nice talking to you, like the white napkin thing on your head, have a nice day, bye," and got out of there fast.

"Note to self, don't EVER flirt with human females again," he muttered peeking into a darkened window from his upside down position. Frustrated, he donned a pair of night vision optics from his pak and tried again.

"Wrong room."

He moved to the next dark window. Peeked. Nothing.

"I don't understand!" he grumbled angrily. "My calculations projected that this was her floor! The hospital blueprint I drew from the computer even said so! Are they meaning to tell me they do not update even their own data? Is that stupid or WHAT?!"

He caught himself and grinned. Sometimes it just felt good pretending he was better than humans. It sure kept his ego alive.

"Okay," he exhaled crawling insect-like to the third window. "If she is not in this room, I will do . . . something destructive. Maybe make something explode. Yeah."

He looked in and scanned the darkness. Chair, bathroom, bed . . . okay there's a person in the bed. A vague shape of a girl. He hit Zoom. "YES!" It was her.

Stealthily, he got the locked window open (no human structure on earth had yet to keep him out) and slipped in. Landing lightly on his spider legs, they lowered him gracefully to the floor and put him steady on two feet. They folded straight up in the air and got sucked back in his pak. He stretched once and rubbed his neck. Damn, he really needed to get out more. Even doing this mild physical sneaking activity had taken a lot out of him.

__

Maybe I'm finally getting old. Zim was older than a lot of Irkens of his size and it was coming around the time things weren't going to be working in perfect order. Being a 'mistake' had something to do with it too. But the most logical cause was he'd been away from Irk for a long time and hadn't gotten a routine medical exam. He was long overdue for one.

__

Ah well. No one lives forever.

Laying it all aside, Zim quietly approached Gaz's bed. Whilst he did, he removed his wig and contacts. He'd long discovered she didn't like his disguise and often when they spoke alone, she'd absently pull his wig off and throw it in his face. "What are you trying to be, Elvis?" she'd tease him and play at poking him in the eye. 

__

She's sleeping.

Zim pulled up the chair to her beside and perched there. It's all he meant to do, sit there and just be with her. So often she kept her head turned from him while they spoke, Zim rarely got to appreciate a full eye-contact conversation. Now in the vulnerability of sleep, he could view her without that conscious awkwardness.

It was hard not to feel sorry for her. Her skin was more pallid than usual, her purple hair lay limply around her head, the strands framing her face dark from sweat. There were circles under her eyes. Her good right arm was attached to an IV drip and a morphine line. The other arm was bound around her collarbone and under in a heavy bandage. So thick it was, one had to look closely at her nostrils to make sure she was still breathing. Gaz looked like she belonged in a hospital. She looked that awful.

Gently he reached over and slipped his hand beneath her limp one. Turning it over in his own, he marveled at how small human hands really were. Delicate too. Humans were the most delicate creatures yet they were so adaptive and their bodies could take a beating and drag itself out of the dark hole of death.

He ran his finger along the soft skin of her wrist to the center of the palm; his mind unconsciously recalling the single night where action and consequence mattered little. What still amazed him she didn't seem to care that he was from another world. Perhaps their own science fiction fantasies had something to do with it. Or those dubious alien abductions Dib used to love preaching about when he'd still been alive. There'd been one occasion Dib had been ranting at him. Getting carried away, Dib had gone off on an accusatory tangent that Zim eventually figured out had nothing to do with him specifically. Still it stuck in his mind.

__

"It's your fault, Zim!" Dib shouted. "You MADE me this way!"

The Irken smacked both palms on the cafeteria table. "I did no such thing! Why would I create some stink-monkey like you to bother me?!"

"To see what would happen!" Dib kept going on. "That's all you and you sick aliens do is experiment on people! You took me when I was a baby and you did stuff to me! What kind of animals are you, huh? HUH?!"

Zim noticed they were gathering a crowd. "Dib, I told you I did nothing to you! I have no time to listen to your petty grievances!"

"You better because it's YOUR fault!" Dib started backing away. "It's all YOUR fault and that's why I'm going to win this Zim! Because you did this to ME!"

Zim shook his head, dislodging the memory_. Why don't I have any good memories? Of anything at all? _He reached up and brushed a lock of hair out of her face. He smiled as he remembered doing that the last time he watched her sleep. Just before he'd gone to the graveyard. Her face was still and peaceful like it was now. Dreamless.

Sometimes he wondered why she wanted to forget what happened between them as badly as she claimed. Intellectually he knew and understood. He just felt it wasn't fair. He ached to share that experience with her, to have her understand what it had been like and maybe then she would have liked it. Maybe then she wouldn't have regretted it.

Now Zim did not think Gaz was beautiful (although she was). Nor did he think she was ugly. Her looks had nothing to do with how he felt about her. It was just everything. Her mind, the way she spoke, her gestures, mannerisms and even her cynical outlook on life. He'd always appreciated those qualities before and it wasn't before long he was able to connect the dots between her reactions to him and his to her. He hadn't been sure how to act on these feelings until Gaz showed him. It didn't make the world better, he reasoned. But it was at last something where two lonely people could forget about being alone for a little while.

Her eyes opened. Before they did, a slight crease drew her eyebrows together as she sensed a presence. Her amber colored eyes moved around the room, reorienting themselves in their surroundings. They fixed on him. Unable to help it, he smiled at her.

She cleared her throat. "Zim," she spoke quietly. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard what happened and I came to see you," he replied. "Look, I know it's not regular visitor's hours but Zim refuses to be constrained by petty little rules." A beat. "How are you?"

"Very light-headed. I think I overdid it with the morphine a little." Gaz kind of chuckled. "Everything's sort of on the fuzzy side." Pause. "Did anyone see you?"

He shook his head proudly.

"Excellent." Gaz's eyes cast down and she saw their hands together. "Zim."

"Oh." He pretended to remember and took his hand away. "Sorry."

Gaz wrinkled her nose. Don't bother. "My dad came."

Zim didn't hold his breath. He waited.

Gaz closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again. "I told him some things. I really laid into him, Zim. He didn't take it too well. I think I might've been too harsh."

"What's too harsh for HIM?" Zim didn't think so. "Whatever you said, he deserved it. With him sugarcoating the truth doesn't work. He's sort of like me. If you don't tell it to me straight, I have no idea."

"No, Zim, he knew it. I just threw it in his face." She stopped and thought. "I don't feel guilty. I just feel like nothing lost and nothing gained. In fact, I kind of expected that he'd bottle up and run."

Zim shook his head. "He's too scared of his demons to face them."

Sadly, Gaz nodded. She licked her lips and turned her cheek. Her eyes were troubled. "My family's dead, Zim." It came out blunt. "When my mother died, it started. Mom had been our gravity, our core. When she was gone, all three of us broke off. Dib threw heart, body and soul into the paranormal, I found oblivion in video games and my father found respite in his work. It worked as first a grieving tool and then it suddenly became the way of life. Dib and I used to be really close, Zim. He was more sensitive than I was and things that didn't bother me affected him deeply. If the tiniest little thing bugged him, he came and told me about it. When it started to sound more and more crazy to me, I found myself drawing away from him. Dib became desperate when he realized he was losing me. So even though I drowned myself in my GS2, he kept sticking by me. I hated being around him. God, sometimes I really wanted to hurt him. One time, it was a few weeks before he got killed, I became so angry with him I grabbed his throat." Gaz felt her face get hot. She had never told anyone about this. "It was only for a second and I let go. He just stared at me in disbelief. I wanted to apologize but I couldn't say anything."

Gaz paused for a long time. "Then," she began slowly. "He started yelling at me and crying at the same time. While he did it he grabbed me and held me like he wanted to hurt me. He really wanted to, Zim. But all he did was let me go. Then that's when I knew it." Gaz sighed. "Zim, I can tell you one thing about Dib. He may have promised you death but he never would have given it to you. I read it in his journal. If it had come right down to the final battle, he would've hesitated."

"Not me." Zim spoke for the first time since Gaz had began talking. "Well, actually, yes. I'd give him a little spiel about how pathetic he was and THEN I'd do him in. During which he'd probably find some way to get away. We had been good adversaries but we were pretty stupid about trying to kill each other."

Gaz gave a little smile. A real one. "Thank God for that."

They laughed quietly.

"So," Zim began after a shared silence. "I'm glad you're okay. I got scared it was going to be like last time." He looked away when he said it. "Guess being a hero comes naturally to you Membranes, huh?"

Gaz moved her hand over his and laced their fingers together. "I got lucky."

Zim glanced at their hands and then at her. "Gaz, I think we both need to talk about this."

"About what? Being a hero?"

"No. About THIS," he pointed between himself and her. "We need to talk about THIS."

Oh no. Gaz feigned confusion. "This?"

Zim scooted closer. "Yes."

"W-Why?"

"BECAUSE," Zim emphasized through gritted teeth. "Maybe you humans can handle your sexual urges but I CAN'T. I don't know what you and I did did to me but since it happened I can't stop thinking about you. EVER." He growled and put both fists to the sides of his head. "I tried to respect your wishes and by talking about it now I'm violating them but I can't - I can't LIVE like this and being around you and pretending it didn't happen is driving me insane."

Gaz remained silent. Her eyes were glassy and it took a long time for her to speak. "Maybe . . ." she faltered for a second and then pressed on. "Maybe we shouldn't . . . see each other anymore."

"What?"

Gaz felt like she was tearing something out of herself. "If being around me is hurting you that much, maybe you shouldn't be around me."

"Huh?"

Either he's playing dumb or doesn't understand. She tried to reword it again. "Let's stop being friends."

"WHAT?!"

Okay, now he got it.

Zim dug his claws into the bed sheets and glared at her. "No. We don't have to go THAT far."

Gaz sat up a little more. "It's better if we do a total cut off. Listen, Zim, I understand what you're going through and sometimes it's better to get away from the pain. The only reason any of this happened was because my brother died. I've thought about it. That's all that keeps you and me together. That's all that hangs over us. Every second." Gaz took a deep breath. "We have to let him die, Zim. My brother isn't alive anymore and we shouldn't be torturing ourselves over something neither of us had any control over. It's time it had an end."

Zim stood back from the bed for a moment, simple disbelief written on his features. "But Gaz . . . I . . . "

"Please, Zim." Gaz begged. "I want to be happy again. I want to _live_ again."

Zim knelt by her bed and grabbed her hand up. "No . . . I'm not hearing this." There were tears standing in his blood red eyes. "Gaz . . ." his voice got small, "don't do this."

Gaz was finding it harder and harder not to cry herself. "Zim."

He looked up.

"I love you."

He buried his face in his hands and turned away. He felt her hand touch him on the arm. With an effort he lifted his head and met her eyes. She was sitting all the way up now without help from the bed. Her hand traveled up and touched his cheek. He rose and touched her face and brought her mouth to his. She moaned and slipped her good arm around him.

A few minutes later Gaz was alone in her hospital room. The window was open, allowing the night air to fill the room.

Sleep did not come for a long time.


	8. Part 2: Standing In the Shadows

A/N: I should have labeled the 1st seven chapters as Part 1. The first half of the story focused on Zim's years living on earth and how they changed him. Now we're jumping ahead in time to the day he decides to leave earth to go home to Irk. . . . Meanwhile Gaz gets caught up in the trials of the single life trying to survive the college adventure while discovering that Zim had a power neither of them knew he had. This all flows so don't worry about getting too confused.

Fan Character Note: Gaz's roommate in college Lark Atwater is a character I used in my FF8 series. Since I created her, I can make her fit any situation. She's basically the same person she was in those fics. Oh yeah, Gaz's ex-boyfriend is NOT who you think he is, they just happen to have the same name.

***

Part 2: Standing In the Shadows 

**by Raina**

***

Two Years Later . . . .

_When you get to be as old as I am (and me, I'm a lot older than most Irkens survive to live) and been through as much as I have, you start to notice a couple of things. Mostly things about yourself. Now with me, I spent the first hundred years of my life with my head up my ass . I lived a measly few centuries nursing an ego until it became a giant rat person like that from Blorch. I think humans would have called me histrionic. You know, self-centered and attention seeking. It's only been in recent years I've opened my eyes._

_I have a dead person to thank for that . . . and a broken heart._

_Who would have guessed being banished would change me so much? Very painful changes they were. Maturity is not a pleasant process and any being who claims it is is not only horribly wrong, they're horribly stupid._

_For a year now I've isolated myself (with the exception of Gir, whose relentless insanity actually helped me keep mine) from the people of this planet. I made no friends - not because I couldn't but because I feared anymore broken emotional attachments would trigger the Irken instinct to kill myself. I wasn't at that point yet but if standing above an abyss of despair is anything to go by, I'm pretty damn close._

_I made my isolation worthwhile. Human culture in its individualism was diverse and depthless. There was just simply too much to learn. I spent a lot of time taking the Voot Cruiser around the planet, visiting exotic places, staying away from anywhere too hot or too cold. The languages of Earth numbered in the hundreds. I catalogued every one of them (even American sign language). In going to each 'country' it was almost like going to different planets. You'd think I wouldn't get enough of it. Eventually I tired and returned to 'my country' the United States of America (don't get me started on what I think of that name). I spent a better part of many months putting all my research together along with my environmental studies. I figured out a way to clean the planet's atmosphere completely of pollutants but unfortunately the results wouldn't begin to show up until another thousand years or so. It was a start though._

_Yet in the months after my world trip, neglect of my deteriorating health began to affect me. My hearing began to go some, although it didn't bother me too much since it put a muffler on Gir's screamier fits. I couldn't run more than twenty yards without gasping for breath. The worst was my left eye. I completely lost sight in my left eye. Age had nothing to do with these ailments. It was lack of medical maintenance. Irkens needed to see a medic every twenty years and I hadn't seen one in over thirty. It showed. _

_When I lost sight in my left eye, I knew I'd let myself go for far too long. I didn't want to wind up completely blind and deaf on a world where many hidden enemies still could lurk. Despite my banishment, I knew I had to compromise. There was no way around it now. If I wanted to get better, I had to leave._

_It meant going back to the Empire._

_***_

Zim didn't make this decision lightly. For days he paced on it, muttered about it, even asked his SIR unit about it. Gir was all for it, clapping his hands, doing a little dance, singing. 

One thing kept him in the chains of indecision. Gaz. He was still in love with her. Even though she moved on with her life, graduated high skool and moved into the city (that's where her college was). Until he went partially blind, Zim had made regular unnoticed visits to check on her. From what he'd observed, Gaz had made ferocious efforts at self-sufficiency. Zim was fine with that until she started dating. When he saw her with another male human, he had what he dubbed an Evil Zim Fit of Doom. That was what freed him from the chains that bound him to this planet. Gaz had become inaccessible to him. In that heartbreaking moment, he felt a certain kind of release for the first time in almost ten years.

He could leave.

***

"Weee-hooo!" Gir zoomed around the living room, shrieking like a monkey. "We're leaving, we're leaving! Out into the wild blue yonder!"

Zim grabbed a remote device and felt his way to the door. He had to turn his head at an angle to make sure it was the doorknob he was grabbing and not the edge of a piece of furniture. "Follow Gir, we can't be in the house when it deconstructs itself. The results would be rather catastrophic. We'd be all squishy-like."

"Squishy!" Gir giggled and eventually calmed down. "Kay!" He hopped after Zim as he marched out to the cul-de-sac's center street. "You're not wearin' your disguise!"

Zim smiled forcefully. "I won't be needing it where we're going. Stand back, this gets rather noisy."

Gir shed his doggie suit, held it up in his tiny hands in fond nostalgia for what would never be again, and just as quickly tossed it aside. "I'M NAKED!"

"Shh!"

Gir nodded, hunched down, putting a finger to his mouth. "Shh!" he reminded himself.

Zim hit the button.

The huge metal cables detracted from their vice electricity sucking grip from the two buildings beside it, inadvertently damaging the structures in the process. Then the house seemed to collapse on itself constructively, folding over several times. The labs beneath it began to retract from the earth, making it shake terribly. After a few more seconds, there was nothing left but a Voot Cruiser, a fence, a couple of broken lawn gnomes and flamingos. Car alarms were going off and people were leaving their houses to stare in befuddlement. Zim ignored them all. He walked over and picked up what looked like a tiny metal screw. He looked at it sitting in the palm of his hand.

"Wow," he said aloud. "I can't believe it. I'm really leaving."

Before heading toward the cruiser, Zim looked back one last time at the neighborhood. This had become his home. This was the street where he had lived. This was the place where so many plots and schemes had played out. This planet was the one who'd made him sad and happy in so many ways. These humans had been the people who, for a little while anyway, he had become a part of. It was a learning experience not many Irkens got to enjoy in the absence of war and domination.

Zim closed his fingers over the small screw-thing and put it in his uniform. Taking a deep breath, he put both fists on his hips. Addressing some of the bewildered faces staring at him, he announced, "Farewell humans. Zim is leaving you now. I have most cherished my stay on your world but it's high time I went back home."

"Ya coming back?" asked a middle aged man leaning out his window. "Cos I'm sick of paying your cable bill.""

Zim didn't flinch. "No. Not for a while."

"Good." The man shut his window.

Everyone lost interest when that happened and went back to their daily lives.

Zim let out his breath. Ignorant creatures. Beautiful, ugly, intelligent, stupid, aware, insensible beings. They disgusted him and pleased him at the same time. 

One more thing. Zim took a hand held computer from his pak and typed a message and sent on the human Internet system. When he was finished he turned to Gir.

"Let's go."

"Yee-hooooo!" Gir grinned maniacally and gave him a thumbs up.

A towel flew through the air and landed on the foot of the figure sitting in front of a lap top computer. The owner of the foot simply glanced at it and kicked back her foot, sending it across the room. Without losing touch-typing rhythm, Gaz spoke. "Not mine."

Lark hovered in the doorway, her shiny shoulder length red hair bouncing. She had just gotten back from cheerleader practice and was still wearing her blue and white uniform. "Well, it's not MINE either."

_I could care less. Oh, wait, that's right . . ._ Gaz kept typing. "It's probably belongs to that boyfriend of yours. You know how weird he is about using other people's stuff." _I can't stand her. Goth girl and prep? What the hell was the college board thinking putting us together?_

Her roommate wrinkled her nose at Gaz's back. "This is a girl's college, Gaz, men aren't allowed in here."

"You better tell Romeo then," Gaz replied, an evil unseen smirk sneaking across her face. "You wouldn't want security to kick his ass for sneaking into your room at night. Through the window nonetheless."

Lark's mouth fell open in outrage. "What! How did . . . I keep my door closed!"

_She thinks a five-inch length of wood hides sound?_ Gaz quit typing. Her chair squeaked as she turned around to face her so-called friend. "Lark, c'mon. I can hear you guys." She tapped the wall facing her desk. She got the perverse satisfaction of watching Lark blush a violent crimson. "That's what I thought."

Lark recovered. "Hey, at least I HAVE a love life."

Gaz rolled her eyes. _Here we go_.

The other girl went on. "You know it's not that difficult to find a perfectly good man in this city. I know a couple of those UFO nuts who are dying to go out with you."

_I doubt it._ "No, Lark, they're dying to go out with YOU. You're like a freakin' Barbie doll. Me? I'm the Nightmare Before Christmas." But Gaz was saying this with a degree of pride. 

Lark sensed the smugness and scrowled. "You're still not over Johnny are you?" She shuddered involuntarily. "That guy, ugh, what a total freak job."

Gaz's face darkened. 

The other girl kept going. "Sure, he was cute but he was really scary."

"_I'm_ scary." Gaz was careful to keep her voice calm and neutral. In her head she was debating on throwing Lark out a window and wondering how high she would bounce.

The Valley Girl didn't seem to notice. Blissfully unaware her life was in danger, she entered the room and retrieved the towel. "Yeah, don't I know it." She straightened up and regarded the poster on the wall above Gaz's bed. "In space no one can hear you scream," she read. She gave Gaz a strange look. "I thought you said you hated this movie."

Gaz shrugged. "I do." She turned back to her computer. 

"Then why do you have a poster for it on your wall?"

The violet-tressed woman's shoulders went up and down. "I dunno. It was my brother's." Shit. She let it slip. So distracted by her book report, she'd forgotten to keep a few of her shields up. Sometimes when you shut the closet too hard, a skeleton fell out.

Lark frowned. This was new information to her. Most everything coming from this mysterious girl was. "Your brother's?"

No way to back out of it now. Gaz simply nodded.

"I didn't know you had a brother. How old is he?"

Keep a stiff upper lip. Gaz took a deep breath. "He would have been 21 six months ago."

Long pause. "I'm sorry."

Gaz only nodded and waited for the next question.

"How . . . long ago?"

"He was twelve. I was nine. It was a car accident. Can you leave me alone now?" Gaz felt irritated all of a sudden. "I have a report to do and your being here is _not_ helping."

Subdued, Lark smiled weakly and backed out of the room. "Sorry. Um, sorry about the towel. I'll just put it in the laundry."

Gaz just made a noncommittal grunt. Whatever.

Lark closed the door on her way out. When she was gone, she sighed heavily. _God, I really need to get a dorm room to myself. Or transfer to another college._ Being around the same sex all the time drained her with all their feminine wiles and female attributes. Having grown up around men all her life – hell, she was raised by one – Gaz found it hard to get in touch with the part of herself that giggled and talked about clothes, boys, nail polish and shopping. It disgusted her to think about it. Whenever Lark managed to get her to go to Bloomingdale's with her, Gaz had visions of hanging herself by a coat rack. Having to give up an opinion about the latest article of merchandise when solicited to do so was difficult enough without punctuating each statement with, "I don't care."

That's what the black shirt she was wearing right now said. It matched her acid washed jeans and white socks. Her hair was piled on top of her head, a few strands escaping to trail down her face.

YOU HAVE MAIL! 

Slightly bowled over, Gaz raised an eyebrow. Mail? From who? No one knew her and she knew no one. Maybe her father, he sometimes sent her a couple of sentences worth. Not that he ever said anything particularly interesting. Resting her chin on her hand, elbow propping it up, Gaz clicked on her Inbox.

Immediately she bit on her knuckles when she saw the e-mail address. Her heart started racing.

_Zim._

Just seeing his name made her mind go in crazy electric directions. What did he want? How did he get her address? How was he? It lead her at the edge of a familiar path of regret. Even after all this time, she still could not forget him. They hadn't spoken or seen each other since they stopped being friends that fateful night in her hospital room. 

Nerving herself, she clicked on the message. 

**Gaz**

**I am returning to Irk. By the time you receive this message I will already be gone. I wanted to tell you in person but I feared just seeing you would make me change my mind. In this case, that would not have been a good idea. I am sick. I have been sick for a long time and it is because I have been lazy about my health. Now I am paying for it. My hearing is practically gone and I have completely lost sight in one eye. I am a mess. My technology is obsolete and I have no medical facilities capable of dealing with my ailments. I most probably will not return. At least not for a while. I cannot stay on Earth any longer even though I have grown to love it more than my own world. If I never return I will never forget it. If I do . . . well, it is likely not best to think too far into the future. **

**This is the hardest message I have ever had to send. Really, it is, writing whole sentences in the human tongue on a computer programmed for Irken is hard.**

**The other reason is this means good-bye. I do not regret the friendship we once shared. I am not sure of what will happen to me or where I will wind up going but I will always be sure about how I feel about you. That is something the Empire could never make me forget.**

**Good-bye Gaz Membrane.  I will miss you.**

**-Zim**

Gaz printed the letter and after she did it she erased it from her computer. Lark must never know. The alien was her fiercest secret. She reread it again and again, trying to make the words on the paper sink in. They didn't. They couldn't. Zim. Gone. The concept didn't add up. Even though the proof sat between her fingers, her mind could not accept it.

I guess I'm free now. There's no one left to care about me. Except maybe Johnny. He never wanted to break up with me . . . I just broke up with him because he scared the shit out of me.

Zim never wanted to leave me. . . I broke it off with him because I realized that the only reason we even felt this way was because . . .

Gaz noticed her eyesight was blurring. Angrily she swiped at her itchy wet eyes. Goddamn it. She cried at everything now. Ever since she got bridled with these human emotions, they started pouncing upon her when she least expected them.

"Damn you," she muttered under her breath. "And damn me too."

Gaz reached under her bed and pulled out a cardboard box. Opening it, she was greeted by an array of familiar items. A leather bound journal, a notebook of poetry and a video cassette tape. If she prized anything, cherished anything, would risk her life in a fire for anything, it would be these things. Of all the things that eventually got sold, lost or destroyed over the years, these three things she never lost sight of.

Now there were four.

Somewhere in the dorm a phone rang. After three rings Lark picked it up.

She placed the folded letter between the pages of the journal. Then she picked up the notebook and picked a poem at random. 

I kind of wish I said "Hi" 

_Instead of "I hope you die."_

_I kind of wish I didn't jump the gun_

_Maybe then you wouldn't have run._

_I kind of wish I kept my mouth shut_

_Maybe then everyone wouldn't think I was a nut._

_I kind of wish I was in your place_

_Looking through your eyes at my face._

_I kind of wish you'd never come_

_Because life for me now is no fun._

"Knock, knock."

Gaz closed her eyes for a moment, counting to three. "What?" she made herself ask evenly.

Lark tried the doorknob and opened it. Sticking only her hand in she tossed the mobile phone on the bed. "For you."

Gingerly, Gaz picked it up. "Who is it?"

"I dunno. Some guy." Door closed.

Some guy. She took it off Hold and stuck on a fake happy chirpy tone. "Hello?"

"Hello Gaz," said 'some guy' in a slightly sultry male voice. It was only a greeting yet he managed to make it sound like a threat.

_Aw no. Aw hell no._ Gaz closed the box and kicked it back under the bed. "What do you want creep?"

"To talk. You never call me anymore."

"That's because we broke up."

"_You_ broke up with _me_," he corrected. "There was no 'we' involved."

Gaz moved around the room as she talked, snatching up clothes and bits of left out homework. "What's your point?"

"My point is, I don't know why you broke up with me. You owe me an explanation."

Gaz narrowed her eyes. "I don't owe you anything. My reasons are my own, Johnny. Thought you were smart enough to understand that."

"I am. Not a mind reader, though, so I could use a little help here . . . GET THAT DAMN ANIMAL OUT OF HERE!! AND GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!"

She held the phone away from her ear until the yelling stopped.

"Johnathan," she began carefully. "I'm hanging up on you now."

"Gaz, come on . . ."

"Here I go."

"Gaz!" Click.

Two seconds later the phone rang again. Making a sound of exasperation she snatched it up. "Johnny, maybe you have a hearing problem or maybe you're just really stupid."

"Or maybe you're just being a bitch," he added connivingly. "I'm going to keep calling and calling until you tell me why you broke up with me. And I will too, you know how obsessive I am."

_God, don't I know it._ Either it was coincidence or planned out by some higher being with a sick sense of humor that all the men in her life were obsessed maniacs. 

Immensely annoyed, Gaz plucked at the air. "If I tell you, will you shut the hell up and leave me alone so I won't have to destroy you?"

"I would love for you to destroy me."

_Pervert_. "I'm not in the mood for subtleties. You scare me. Happy now?"

"Scare you? SCARE YOU?!" He laughed like crazy. On the other end, Gaz held the phone away again, a worried expression flickering across her face for a brief second. "I thought that's why you liked me."

"It got old."

"Oh man," he faked a wound. "That hurt, oh yeah, hit me right in the ticker. Bullshit."

"Bullshit or not, it's the truth. Now don't ever call me again or I'll make you prince of nightmare world. Good-bye Johnny and stay out of jail." Gaz hung up and shut the phone off, cutting off all callers. Tossing it unceremoniously on her bed, she shook her head. 

"That's the last time I date an ex-con."

Before heading back to her terminal to finished her report, Gaz looked out the window toward the sky. "Good-bye Zim," she said softly. Even more softly she added, "Come back."

6 MONTHS LATER (hey, 6 to get there 6 to get back)

"Doomdoomdoomdoomdoomydoom! Dooooooooom! The end!" Gir clapped and bowed to an invisible audience. "Thank you! Thank you all! I love you!" Wriggling all over in anticipation, he looked on his master with big eyes. Zim was out cold, head turned to the side with his heel propped up on the dashboard. "Aw, master missed the Doom Song. Oh well." He pressed his tiny robot hands against the glass, the only thing separating them from the cruel vacuum of space. Suddenly he saw something that made him shriek like a howler monkey. "LOOK! LOOK MASTER!" Jumping on Zim's abdomen, he hopped up and down. Thankfully he was too lightweight to cause any internal damage.

Since Zim's hearing was bad, the insane cackling didn't filter through immediately. It came more as of a constant buzz in his head that eventually reached the hazy fog of his brain. Dimly he was aware of a commotion but the deep effects of prolonged sleep prevented him from responding readily. What stirred him to consciousness was the deep voice of his computer speaking at top volume.

"Massive and armada ahead. Planet Irk in sight." Pause. "Wake up you FOOL!"

Zim sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his aching head. "I would kill for a cup of Irken coffee right now." He blinked hard several times, trying vainly to focus. Since he lacked depth perception, half successful the effort was. Ignoring Gir's incessant gibbering, he stared long and steadily at what lay before him.

Yes. There they were. The whole armada fleet and among them, the immense crimson hued Massive. Surprising they were in orbit around the little world of Irk. _Hmm, odd,_ he thought. _Why would they be. . . unless there's no mission to conquer the universe going at the moment. Either that or they've all taken a pit stop at home for a short refreshener. I mean, snacks eventually run out._

"Curse you snacks," he muttered. Damn Irkens, that's all they lived for were those STUPID, disgusting . . .

A transmission interrupted him.

"Hey, who are you?"

Zim deliberately kept his view screen down. He suspected he looked awful – and plus he was very aware of his notoriety. His past exploits of destruction were as infamous as the day he was born. Being recognized right now wasn't what he needed.

"A Irken who's just come home, that's who," he replied calmly and evenly. "So you can stop pointing your lasers at me."

"How'd you know we were pointing our lasers at you?" The voice was familiar but for some reason his memory couldn't place it.

Zim's head dropped, his weary antenna hanging limply around his head. "It's standard Irken military procedure. Every native born Irken knows that. My ship alone is non-military in nature so it would naturally be subject to suspicion." Pause. "Is that good enough for you?"

Someone else spoke. "Do you have any idea of whom you are addressing?"

"Should I care?"

"Well, duh," said the second voice. "Just because we find you so amusing, we'll let it go. You're speaking to your Tallest."

Oh damn . . . Not good.

"Whoop-de-do." Zim didn't bother fighting the wry grin that spread across his face nor did he bar himself from imaging the shock on the Tallests' faces  

There was a faint commotion in the background. Zim had to put his head next to the communicator to hear anything at all.

"Where does this guy get off talking to us like that?" said the second voice, who sounded like Red. "I mean, did you hear how he SAID it?"

"Uh," concurred the first voice, which could only be Purple. "I have no idea what he said. 'Whoop-de-do.' Doesn't ring a bell!"

Their voices were louder again. 

"Listen," Red said sternly. "I have no idea who you are or what sort of madness you've obviously been afflicted with but you do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT address your superiors like that."

"Like what?" Zim yawned. "Look, are you going to let me dock or what? I need to stretch my legs."

"Hey, hey!" Purple protested. "We just can't let you DOCK. I mean, you didn't even give us your name!"

"We can't even see you either," Red added peevishly.

Zim sighed and hit the view screen button. He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. When the Tallests' images appeared before him (time hadn't changed their appearances at ALL), they were surprised to see an Irken who fell short just two heads of them. They were also surprised to see how annoyed he looked. To the Tallest it was unfathomable any Irken would be displeased to speak to them. It was a near impossibility to them to not garner automatic respect and obedience from the rest of the general populace.

Red peered closer into the view screen. "Now THAT, Purple, is exactly what I'm talking about. Look!" He pointed to Zim. "He's almost as tall as we are! I told you someone was going to come along one day and give us a run for our monies."

Purple perused Zim and finally shook his head. "Nah. He ain't THAT tall." Paying attention to the haughty Irken staring straight back them without a hint of docility, he spoke. "Tell us your name and you can dock. We'd like to talk to you."

Zim didn't like that idea. "How about you just let me dock and then I'll let you figure me out." With that, he hit a button and cut off communications.

Red threw up his arms in frustration when the screen before them went to white snow. "Who does this soldier think he is?!"

"Uh," Purple put in from his position on a recliner. "We don't even know if he's a soldier."

"Well, he LOOKS like one," Red said somewhat sullenly. "I don't know about you, Purple, but this can't look good. I mean, he's got too much of a mind for himself. That isn't normal for an Irken."

Purple grinned. "Now who does that remind us of?"

They burst out laughing.

"Those were the good old days," Red laughed taking a swig from a soda cup. "You know, I get curious sometimes."

"About what?"

"About what happened to him." Red shrugged. "I'm glad as anyone he's gone but, hey, sometimes I wonder."

Purple became serious, a rare thing being for the slightly dim-witted fellow ruler. "Don't bother thinking about it. Irkens who cause that much dissension don't deserve to be thought about because that's exactly what they WANT you to do."

"Pretty deep, Purple."

"Nah, I read it in a book once."

They started laughing again. They would soon regret their laughter.


	9. You're Real

***

"Okay, now for the pat-down. Could you please raise your arms?"

Zim obeyed and rolled his eyes as he did. "You guys must really love your job."

The Cruiser inspector was bored. He didn't even glance up from his electronic clipboard as three other uniformed Irkens poked and prodded the pockets and cavities of Zim's uniform to their heart's content. When one of them got a little too curious for his own good, Zim responded with a slap. "Don't touch me." Looking over his shoulder at the four guys inspecting the Voot, with his arms still raised in the air, he asked, "Is all of this really necessary? A full ship and body cavity inspection? . . . (Stop it!)"

The inspector tiredly looked up at Zim, the weariness in the short Irken's eyes reaching Zim's consciousness. He no more liked performing these inspections than Zim enjoyed being the recipient of them. 

"We're only doing our job."

Uh-huh. Zim wasn't convinced. He also hadn't been able to hear what the Irken had said so he winged it off. "Whatever. If I have to strip then we're talking about a major sexual harassment suit just waiting to happen." He grinned at his Earth-influenced remark, knowing the humor was for the audience of one. The incomprehension flickering across the faces of all within hearing isolated him from the rest. For the first time, he felt his outsiderness keenly and to a depth he'd never experienced before.

__

So this is what it's like, he thought in mock depression. _This is what the frustration I saw every day in Dib's eyes feels like. Ah well. Better now than never._

Gir, meanwhile, was getting a kick out of the inspection. Gleefully the little bot handed the female Irken inspector every single object he kept inside his head. A pile of toys, eleven tacos, one slice of pizza, three cola drinks and the entire contents of a box of car parts was growing with the end nowhere in sight. Zim bit his tongue to keep laughter at bay. The female was looking increasingly exasperated by the minute.

Finally, the public humiliation was over (the dock inside the Massive was full of Irkens coming and going like a modern Earth airport). Zim straightened his rumpled uniform and pinned a dirty look to the departing crew of body and ship violators. Impulse hit him and he gave into the urge to give all turned backs the Bird.

"I don't know Gir," he commented aloud as the SIR came to stand beside him. "Sometimes I wonder if coming back here was a mistake."

"You're half-blind!" Gir squealed unhelpfully. "And you can't hear good no more!"

Zim glared at him out of his good eye. "Thanks for the reminder."

Gir just smiled and gave his master a quick hug. Zim patted him on the head affectionately. He was really fond of the little robot, and his unconditional devotion kept Zim honest to his own emotions every day. Once he loathed Gir's boundless love for everything because it seemed misdirected. Now he realized it wasn't misdirection, it was a simple unprejudiced outlook on all things contrary to the pessimism of the cruel universe. For in Gir, he could always rely on that.

Worn out from the journey and the too intrusive attentions of the search, Zim leaned against the hull of his parked Cruiser. He massaged the space between his eyes, feeling a pervasive ache emanate from deep within. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. He sighed quietly. Nothing to do now except wait for the Tallest to come meet him_. Boy, won't that be fun,_ he reflected acidly. _It's not enough I hate them but I have to talk to them? Ugh._

Gir watched his master and felt an unfamiliar flicker of sorrow go through his circuits. Coming close to Zim he said, "It's okay, master. Everything's gonna be okay."

Zim didn't open his eyes but he did smile and that did a lot for the little robot. If there was nothing else he existed for, it had to be this. It had to be this.

***

From across the dock, Red and Purple waited. They watched the inspection of the strange too-tall-for-his-own-good Irken and marveled. Well, not exactly marveled, since they never let this be made evident in their verbal opinions. Moreover they were miffed at his behavior. Normal Irkens usually passively let the crews look them over without so much as a howdy-do. This one, however, stuck on self-imposed limits and pointed out everything they were doing was ludicrous. 

Plus there was a disturbingly au courant inflection to his voice neither leader of the Empire found comforting in the least. They simultaneously dismissed it when they watched the Irken lean against his ship in exhaustion. A SIR unit crept up close to him and the two exchanged very quiet conversation. 

Something about the SIR rubbed Purple wrong. "Doesn't that SIR unit look familiar to you?"

Red eyed it and nodded, his light red eyes narrowing. "It sure does." Quickly he shook himself. "But a lot of Irkens have those old issue SIRs. Plus if it WAS what we thought it was . . ."

Purple nodded, following his co-ruler's logic. "Yeah. But what about his ship? I have NEVER seen a ship like that before. It looks . . . really bad."

"Bad? Bad how?" Red asked sarcastically. "Bad like a piece of junk or bad like someone took it upon himself to slap together his own fancy-pants space shuttle?"

Purple burst out laughing. "Haha! That's great! Fancy-pants! Hehe."

Red waited for him to calm down before flatly declaring, "You're an idiot."

Purple just stuck out his tongue and ended the matter there.

When they drew close enough, the strange Irken became aware of their presence. Rather heavily, he stood up straight and brushed off his uniform. He lifted his chin high and peered at his rulers with such an expression of contempt and misgiving, each Tallest felt an echo of their own misgiving come from within as well. He didn't bother saluting, wiggling his antenna or showing any manner of fealty. The Tallest glanced at each other, their facial expressions a mixture of annoyance and boredom.

The stranger tilted his head to the side and focused on the Tallest with his right eye, his other eye half-lidded. "I can't believe you two got off your high horse to come down and see me. I feel honored." There was no respect in his tone.

"Hey," Red began keeping his temper in check. "When we give you permission to speak, you do it then."

"Yeah, you can't just blurt any little thing that comes out of your head!" Purple added with relish.

"Huh?" A bead of sweat appeared on the Irken's forehead.

Red turned briefly to Purple. "You would know." Back to the strange Irken, he put. "Who are you?"

"Huh?" The Irken began to sweat even more. "What?"

Purple leaned in close to the stranger's face. "Are you stupid?"

The Irken gritted his teeth and used his index finger to push Purple back a little. Irkens watching gasped, startled and shocked anyone would TOUCH a Tallest let alone do it in such a defiant manner.

"You're going to have to speak up, sirs," the stranger growled. "I can't hear you."

Collectively the Tallest stared at him, not knowing what to say or even how to react to such a statement.

"You can't HEAR us?" Purple blurted out loudly. "That doesn't make any sense. How can you NOT hear us?"

The Irken cupped one hand to the side of his head. "Thank you. I just don't."

"He's deaf!" the SIR unit piped up in that unmistakable, one-of-a-kind, high-pitched voice that sent reverberations through both Tallest. Red's mouth dropped open and the candy bar in Purple's hand fell out of its wrapper to the floor. Not so much as what the SIR had said shocked them as they finally recognized the droid.

"Hey, it's that piece of junk!" Purple announced. "That-That . . ." It dawned on him. "Oh no."

Red didn't buy it. "Where did you get that SIR?"

The stranger tapped the side of his head and shook it.

"I SAID WHERE DID YOU GET THAT SIR?!"

"From you." The stranger then indicated Purple. "And you."

Purple raised his arms in exasperation. "That's crazy! That SIR belongs to . . . to. . ." He covered his face with his arm. "Don't make me say it! Don't make me say HIS name!"

Red rested a hand on his co-ruler's shoulder. "Hey, calm down." To the stranger he imparted. "That SIR was given to an 'invader'," He made the 'air words' with two digits, "named Zim. He was banished from the Empire ten years ago. Twice, actually." I hope, he added silently.

The stranger nodded. "Oh yes, I know Zim."

Purple and Red glanced at each other. "Oh?" Purple said off-handedly. "How?"

The Irken shrugged. "Being that I AM Zim, that pretty much cuts into the how part." He gave his leaders that maniacally evil grin that sent shock waves through them like there was no tomorrow. In each Tallest's mind, a montage of images from the past resurfaced. It sent Purple to screaming a prolonged "No!" to the sky while Red just stared at Zim with an open mouth.

Zim held up a hand. "Really, my Tallest, none of that is necessary."

Purple shut up. Red closed his mouth.

Let's get this over with. Zim folded his arms and decided it time to explain himself. "I have not come begging for my exile to be terminated nor have I come seeking to relinquish my outsider status. Under less dire circumstances you would have had to have me shot and killed to drag me back here. I've come for medical treatment and nothing else."

There was a long, awkward silence.

Finally Red found his tongue. It wasn't easy. "Meet us in our quarters."

Zim sighed and pointed to his ear.

Purple supplemented shouting and gestured for Zim to follow them. The former invader nodded and turned to Gir. "Stay here with the cruiser. I don't want anyone getting any funny ideas."

Gir's eyes went red and he saluted. "Yes sir!"

***

Neither of the Tallest knew what to make of him. Zim could see they were experiencing varying degrees of embarrassment and the tiniest amount of shame. After all, Zim thought sarcastically, they were the ones who decided to one day to cut the bullshit and kick me out of the Empire flat on my ass. They had to do it twice.

For a long time, neither leader spoke much. Since getting to their quarters, they'd gone off to the side, conversing quietly amongst themselves. Once in a while one of them would glance at him. Zim occupied himself by alternately staring out the window at the stars, decorations on the walls and eyeing the silent presence of the Tallests' personal guards. Becoming restless, he wandered around the room and peered closely at things that resembled Earth lava lamps and little birdie dip things that pretended to "drink" a liquid out of a cup.

"Zim."

Zim looked up and went back to where he was standing, assuming again his quietly defiant posture. 

It was Purple who had spoken. He seemed rather reluctant to speak first but Red poked him in the back. "We're going to be honest with you. Considering your, uh, unscheduled arrival, Red and I feel it's best to be blunt."

"First time for everything." Zim's tone was flat.

Red volunteered to go next. "You can have your, uh, treatment, provided you leave as soon as possible. I mean, you do understand you've been declared . . . non-active."

Zim got it immediately. "I'm dead."

"Yeah," Purple added uneasily. "You do realize how embarrassing it is that you're, um, alive. For us, I mean." Red poked him hard. "OW! For the whole Empire."

Zim shook his head. _How is it these guys don't fall down more?_ "You don't have to pussy-foot around me, my Tallest." It was an effort to get the last part out. "I'm not the same Zim who thought by making fires worse was putting them out. I'm not the same Zim you decided to one day, for kicks, to tell the truth about my 'mission.'"

"You remember that?" Red said weakly.

"I wish I didn't."

Purple eyed him. "You've really . . . changed. You sound the same but you're . . . taller."

"Yeah," Red agreed. "How did that happen? You were such a tiny little thing. Now you're . . uh . . ."

"Tall," supplied Purple.

Zim shook his head. _How did I not see what idiots these two are before?_ "Is there a point to this? Big deal, I'm taller than I used to be but, oh thank God for you, not tall enough to be Tallest. Believe me, if I were, I would not take the position. I have better things to do than sit on my ass all day."

Both Tallest looked shocked. It was still difficult to register in their minds that this once respectful laughingstock of the Empire was now a defiant individual who had his once wildly unpredictable intelligence under sensible control. Although they remained confused as to why Zim was as sick as he was.

Red finally approached Zim and looked him in the eye. "Look, I don't know where you got this . . . this attitude from but it's going to have to stop for as long as you're around us. Maybe you forgot how to act like an Irken wherever you've been hiding yourself but we're giving you a reminder now. The next time, we're not gonna be so nice about it."

Zim didn't reply. He just glared back silently. With all his heart he longed to exact retribution for what they did to him. For all the years trapped inside the knowledge he could never, ever again be a part of his own people. However he couldn't_. That's civilization,_ he thought. _Realizing just because you can exact revenge doesn't mean you should._

Irk did it all the time. So did the human United States of American. Irk called it counter retaliation. The US called it foreign policy. _Isn't that interesting, Irkens and humans aren't different at all._

When Zim refused to speak further, Red and Purple exchanged looks. Clearly the leaders were at a loss.

Purple thought long for a moment. "Zim," he said in a low voice. "You want something from us, don't you?"

Zim narrowed his eyes. "I want nothing from you. I just want my hearing and my eyesight restored."

Red sensed what Purple was getting at and put in. "Zim, look, we're not stupid. Tell us what you want and maybe . . . I don't know . . . we'll give it to you. You know, just as a kind of 'thanks for not being dead' thing."

If it shuts them up. God, they're paranoid. "What I want you can never give me," he said ominously. "Except maybe something you can apologize for."

"Apologize?" Purple repeated. "For what?"

Zim growled. "You two have no idea do you?"

Both Irken leaders shook their heads.

"I want an apology for the Empire," Zim said carefully containing his rage. "I want an apology for all the shit that went on behind my back. I want an apology for the lie that was my mission." He fought back his emotions mightily. "That's all. If I want anything, that's what I want."

Red was completely confused. "An apology? That's it? That's all you want?! No pardon from exile, no Invader status, no nothing?!"

"No."

"Not even a new ship?" Purple asked.

"Well . . . No!" Zim shook off the temptation. "Nothing! None of it! Just an apology!"

"Hold on." 

Both Tallest scratched their heads and spoke off to the side.

"Should we?"

"I suppose . . . if it's what he wants."

"You know," Purple wondered aloud. "Maybe we should ask him to stay."

"What? Are you nuts?" Red exclaimed raising his arms in protest. "This is ZIM we're talking about!"

"Yeah, well," Purple said lightly. "Look at him. He's not insane anymore. Whatever made him that way isn't making him crazy."

"True." Red glanced at the patiently waiting subject of conversation who once again set to staring at the stars. "I don't know. He's too for himself - then again he's always been like that. Plus . . ." he whispered it, "he hates us."

"Hates us?" Purple blinked confusedly and then it dawned on him. "Oh yeah. I can see. Well, what do you want to do? We've got deadlines to meet."

Red thought a moment, tapping his chin. "We'll give him his 'apology' and then tell him he can either stay or go. Leave it open for him. If stays, he stays and if he goes, he goes. 

He said he was going to leave anyway."

"He did."

"So we're not losing anything here."

"Yeah."

"Okay." Red looked to Zim. "All right, Zim. You get your apology."

Zim raised an antenna. He was not expecting this development. "I want to hear you say it." He pointed at both Purple and Red. "Both of you."

"At the same time?"

"Yes."

"We're sorry for. . . " they began and trailed off.

"The lies. You're sorry for the lies." Zim was amazed at his own ability to not throttle what irked him so badly. Could it be he possessed of self-control even under these circumstances? Simply astounding in his opinion.

"We're sorry for the lies." That concluded, Purple added casually, "And you don't have to go right away. Stick around, get something to eat, you know . . . all that fun stuff."

Zim sighed. _I can never win. No matter how hard I try, no matter how blunt I am or angry I get, I will never win. Irken society is ironclad and without free will. These two are as enslaved to it as those smaller than they. There's no use in getting mad at a machine._

"Thank you, my Tallest. But I seek nothing but a medic." Pause. "Can I go?"

They nodded.

Zim started toward the door.

"Wait!" called Purple, not knowing why he wanted to know this.

Zim turned, hand on the door.

"What's out there?" he asked quietly.

"Out . . . there?" Zim narrowed his good eye at them.

Red picked up on it. "There is something out there that you think is better than the Irken Empire. What is it?" He was astonished at the realization he really wanted to know this as much as Purple did.

Zim smiled suddenly and it wasn't an evil smile. It was more nostalgic and nuanced. "There is."

"What?"

Zim smiled again. "A girl."

When he left, the Tallest just looked at each other, expressions of wonderment and perplexity passing between them.

Finally Red just shook his head. "I'll be damned."

*** 

Back on Earth, things were no less complicated. Or rather, they were hectic. With finals coming up that week, students were scrambling to balance study time with a job. Gaz was having one such problem. Normally walking into work cheered her up but with all the concepts she'd tried valiantly to cram into her head the night before, she was feeling irritable. Since she wrote reviews for a popular GameSlave magazine, what she reviewed that day seemed to her like the market was full of crap these days. The company was really struggling creatively these past six years and Gaz vowed once she got her diploma she'd climb rank and get the company back on its feet. Come the Apocalypse, she'd be damned if she saw her favorite handheld game company go under.

She ended the day feeling like she'd wasted her time yet she rather liked the way her reviews had come out. Professional with a slightly nasty undertone warning away gamers from the affairs that reeked. Made good time in any case, her editor was just glad to get them.

Since her job was walking distance, Gaz didn't bother taking her car. She rarely drove the thing anyway, even though she pulled teeth for a parking permit and everything. A gift from her father and his vast bank account, the shiny very dark purple Neon sat there and collected pollen dust. Not that she hated the car. It just reminded her of too much of something she was trying to forget. She wished she knew what it was.

Did it have to be so cold out? Why did the sun have to set so early anyway? Gaz shivered and pulled her black coat around her. Although her eyes were downcast, she paid very careful attention to the people walking by her. Her hospital experience had awakened her mind to the dangers of the night life and her senses were always attuned. Though she never saw Bella again (a fact she was very disappointed by) she knew she would never forget her.

__

I don't want to go back to my dorm, she thought checking the date on her watch. _Unless. . . no, okay, forget it_. Lark and her girlfriends would be over right about now having a party - again without Gaz's consent. Friday nights were the warning sign nights. They were hell on campus.

Instead Gaz took a detour into a coffee shop. If she loved anything in the world anymore, it was the smell of coffee and those really big ceramic cups they served them in. This one was dark and kind of seedy looking but one couldn't be too picky. It was mostly empty except for a few people who isolated themselves in the corner. The best thing about it was, it was quiet.

__

Good idea. Everywhere should be like this. Gaz picked a booth, ordered a cup of some sort of latte and sat there with it. She removed her gloves so her numb fingers could wrap around the hot mug and get feeling back in them.

She wasn't aware someone sitting in a booth was watching her. At least not until she looked up and casually scanned the place. Holding back a gasp, she forced to keep herself from bolting.

It was Johnny. _Goddamnit, if things couldn't get any worse_, she thought. _He can't be stalking me because I've never been in here before and I did this on spur of the moment-like. _So it was a coincidence.

__

I suppose it could be worse. I could be at Lark's all-nighter. Shudder.

__

Please don't come over . . . oh no, he's coming over.

Gaz steeled herself. _He won't hurt me_, she reminded herself over and over. _Johnny doesn't like touching people . . . except me and only when I let him, which is to say never again._

"The universe moves in mysterious ways," he greeted her. "Ironic isn't it?"

Gaz didn't bother looking up at him even though he was standing right there. "Maybe you can take your universal irony elsewhere."

"Ah, your bitchiness, how I've missed it," he spoke acidly. "Can I sit down?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Not really." He proved it too and sat across from her. Well, at least he didn't sit next to her. 

Gaz still did not look at him. Instead she stared into the murky depths of her java. "What do you want?"

"Christ, you sound like I'm the devil or something," he said, the cat-and-mouse amusement in his voice making Gaz's stomach squirm. Even though she wasn't looking at him, she knew he was smirking. "If I want anything, it's a real answer."

"A real answer." Gaz stated it.

"Yes, a real answer," he reiterated impatiently. "Shutting off your phone doesn't stop me from wanting an answer. Okay, so I scare you. I scare everyone, Gaz, that's who I am. That's who you are too, if you wanted to be."

Gaz sighed. "Johnny, I don't want to get into your alleged deep thoughts of a higher mind discussions, as you like to call them. I came here to be alone."

Johnny thought it a mockery. "YEAH, SO'S THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD!"

Gaz finally looked up at him, outraged. "Jesus. What is your problem? Did you forget to take your meds or something?" Immediately she knew looking up was a mistake. So long as you didn't meet his eyes, you were okay. You lived to tell about it. But the moment one looked into Johnny's face, there was no turning back until it was on his terms.

Johnny resembled a grown up Dib in a few ways, like the hair and the trench coat but that's where the differences ended. They weren't even why she used to like him anyway.

He had these half-hooded eyes that brimmed with hyper-intelligence and energy that reminded her of someone else. They weren't insane eyes, in fact they were the type that looked you through and saw you for what you really were. They were windows to a cold calculating mind that had devised more ways to commit crime unnoticed than a lot of other former criminals. It had taken one hell of a detective to put him away for eight years but there was enough circumstantial evidence to seal his fate. Johnny had done broken every law except commit murder. That was his only saving grace, for as far as Gaz was concerned.

His spouts of rage were the end result of too much time communing with four gray cell walls. Having gotten so used to them, it was taking him a while to get himself under civil control again.

Johnny folded his arms across the table top and smiled when Gaz's eyes met his. That was his only answer. Unfortunately it was all it took.

Gaz felt the part of herself she often cursed starting to waver. _Don't give in. Don't give in._

You did it last time. Don't do it again. If there was anyone Gaz completely disregarded the consequences around, it was him. That was one of the reasons she knew she couldn't be with him. Plus there was the teeny tiny problem of him being an ex-convict.

She took a deep, shaky breath. "Please leave me alone. We're over, okay? Over. Done. Gone. Oblivion."

Johnny didn't say anything. He just narrowed his eyes at her in a measuring manner. It was his mind game. Silence.

Gaz made two fists under the table and pinioned him with a glare. "Johnny, it is NOT going to work this time. So just stop it." Nothing. _Okay, fine. I'm taking control here. I'm not freakin' helpless._ Gaz grabbed her purse and got up from the table. "I hate you."

Mistake. Johnny got up and followed her to the door. Gaz stopped when they were outside. Fiercely she whirled and growled, "What is it about me that makes freaks like you want me anyway? Huh? Answer me THAT!"

Johnny halted and simply stared at her. Clearly he had not expected this from her. His mouth fell slightly open. "About you?"

"Yeah! What?" she snapped.

Johnny opened his mouth and closed it again. "I-I don't know. You're . . . different."

Gaz snorted.

He continued. "You're not . . . like everyone else. You're . . . you're real."

It was her turn to stare. Her whole mind just got stuck.

He appeared to think about what he said and then nodded. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "I'll leave you alone." Johnny turned and disappeared into the night crowd.

Gaz watched him going, feeling confused. Of all the things she expected out of life, this moment was not one of them. This sensation going through her did not belong there. And yet it did.

Gaz glanced at the stars. " 'Pur si muove.'" 

Then she pulled on her gloves and walked home.


	10. Food Is God

A/N: These are coming out slow because of college and all that wonderful stuff. I have a whole plan for this story so don't worry about where it's going because I already know. Yes, Gaz's ex-boyfriend Johnny is inspired by everyone's favorite homicidal maniac even though I barely skimmed any of the JtHM issues, just read a few scenes here and there. Oh yeah and the phrase 'Pur Si Mouve' (the complete correct phrase is E Pur Si Mouve) is Italian (I'm assuming this because I think he was Italian) for "And still it moves." Anyone familiar with Galileo would know why he said it. See the opening to the Invader Zim episode of "Lice" and you'll see where I got my ideas from. Oh yeah, just as a general warning, while I wrote the flashback sequence, I almost started crying. Just a warning.

***

Zim stared into the depths of his drink. Right straight through to the bottom, counting the bubbles rising to the top. It pleased him in a strange way, pleased him that those hundreds of little bubbles started at the bottom and made their way to the top. Lifting his gaze, he scanned the terminal, blinking first one eye and then the other. Once muffled noise washed over him, penetrated him more keenly than it did before. There were new pitch variations and rhythms to sounds he realized he never noticed before. Modern Irken medicine was incredible. One trip to a local Irken medic worked wonders. Within the space of an hour his eyesight was completely restored and his hearing was better than ever. It was all thanks to a special kind of procedure where the patient entered a CAT scan like device, which seemed, to outsiders, to electrocute him. Whatever is wrong with him or her is programmed into the machine and it fixed it. Simple as that. At one time the Empire tried to market the thing for personal invader use but unfortunately it required way too much assembly and supervision. Henceforth it created positions for aspiring medical Irkens who desired neither conquest nor hand-to-hand combat.

Still with all that, Zim had acutely astounded the medic with his degraded condition. In all of his life, the medic had said, he had never seen an Irken in such poor health. When asked how he got that way, Zim replied with one little word, "Time."

"I don't like it."

Gir's voice snapped him out of his reminiscence. "Huh?"

The little bot held up his drink with the Empire insignia on the side of the cup. "It's not like Poop Cola. I want Poop Cola. I don't like this stuff."

Ah. Finally. Food Gir didn't like. "I'm sorry, Gir, but there's no Earth food on the Massive. What about all those tacos you brought with you?"

"I ate 'em all."

"Well, sorry to hear that."

"I want my tacos!" Gir demanded sternly. "I want them NOW!"

__

Oh boy. Zim sighed, punching himself in the head. How was he going to explain this? He got down on one knee and crooked his finger. Gir leaned in attentively, his large blue optics hopeful and wide. "Listen. Are you listening?" Nod. "There aren't any tacos around here. Irk doesn't make the kinds you like. They are only on Earth. Understand? There are no tacos here."

Gir looked completely mortified. "No tacos??!! At all? Anywhere?!"

"No."

The robot burst into tears. "Madness! It's MADNESS!!"

__

I hate being the bad guy. To avoid drawing attention to them, Zim simply assumed his Irken military pose and turned his back on the screaming droid. Human earth mothers did this when their worm babies threw public fits of hysteria. It usually worked.

Eventually Gir's screams subsided and he sidled up to Zim's side, looking severely rebuked. Zim finished his own drink and tossed it in the nearest trash disposal. "Okay. We're going to pick up some supplies before we head off. Stick close to me and don't wander off." 

"Kay!" Gir grinned and hopped from foot to foot. "Master?"

"Hmm?" Zim stepped onto a moving conveyer. His robot joined him a second later. 

"Why are all the green people dressed the same?"

One tangent after another. An intelligent being would have gone insane by now. Fortunately Zim had developed a high tolerance. "Irkens, Gir. They're called Irkens. They're dressed like that because that's the way all of them have to dress. Standard Irken uniform issue." The information rolled out easily. _I'm saying 'they' instead of 'we'_, he noticed with some discomfort_. I'm part of the 'they', I dress no different than the 'they.' I am the 'they.'_

I disgust myself.

"Oooooh." Gir looked around for a few minutes, confused and puzzled by the immensity of the technological wonders surrounding him. "How come no one's smiling?"

Zim shrugged. That one he couldn't answer.

"I miss big head boy. He smiled a lot."

The former invader winced. He wished Gir wouldn't bring up Dib so casually. It amazed Zim the SIR even still remembered him. "Me too. He did." Evil smiles but smiles nonetheless.

That was the last sensible thing they talked about. For the rest of their conveyer belt journey from the Massive to the resident Irken equivalent of a space station, Gir kept pointing at everything. "What's that?! What's that?! What's that?!" fired off one after the other. A few people disturbed by it rewarded them with peculiar looks. 

He didn't care. _So what. We're all crazy. Without insanity there wouldn't such a thing as an orderly society._

Zim stepped off the conveyer, Gir following shortly after. "That was fun!" Pause. "I wanna do it again!" He made as if to bolt but Zim caught him by the antenna sticking from the top of his metal head.

"No, Gir, focus. Our mission is to get supplies, refuel the Voot and get the hell out of Dodge."

"Why? I like it here!"

"Gir, you like it _everywhere_."

"Na-uh, I didn't like the Netherlands!" the bot objected. "Too cold!" After a second he added, "But I liked Venice. They had roads made of water!"

"Not me." Zim shuddered gazing around the large merchandise district. It was huge. He felt painfully insignificant. Of course, that was the point of making everything so big. You were supposed to feel insignificant. "I fell out of the boat."

Gir tittered. 

"It's NOT funny."

Gir throttled his laughter behind his tiny hands until it became an inner monstrosity. He started squealing and rolling all over the floor. Zim just shook his head in bewilderment. "I think while I'm 'shopping' I'll buy you a muffler. A big one." Distracting himself, Zim rubbed his chin. "Where am I going to find a Voot supply store around here? All they have is food."

"What's wrong with food?" Gir asked having recovered from his laughing fit a few minutes ago. "Food is God."

__

Food is God?! Zim blinked hard and pretended to clean out an ear. "Food is God?" he repeated.

Gir smiled and nodded.

"Where did you hear that from? You couldn't have possibly made that up yourself."

"I don't know. Wait! Yes! . . . No wait, no." Gir waved his tiny arms around crazily. "Yes! Gaz!"

"Gaz?" Zim scratched his head. "When did you hear her say that?"

Gir snickered. "I ate over one time and she ordered pizza and she said 'Gir, food is God.' So food is God." Pause. "What is God?"

Zim shrugged. He wasn't in the mood for metaphysics. "I haven't been able to figure that out except that the humans tend to blame a lot of problems on it." He turned back to the vast, impossible array of stores before him. _I'm tempted to do the same._ "Don't they have a map or something around here? Ah! There!" He went over to a wall map that showed a floor plan of the entire space station. Muttering under his breath, he struggled to figure out the complicated labyrinth. "I'm gonna need a native guide, I can see it now."

"I can help you!"

"No, thanks." Zim didn't bother acknowledging whoever had spoken to him. His mind was entirely on figuring out the map.

"No, seriously, I can help you."

"I said, no thank you."

"Oh c'mon! I got nothing else to do."

__

Get a grip. Zim closed his eyes for a brief moment to counter his boiling point. Opening them again, he turned to speak to whoever was bothering him. "That's pretty sad . . ." _Wait, look down._ A short squat Irken peered up eagerly at him. Zim suddenly did a double take. "SKOODGE?!"

Skoodge's ultra-friendly demeanor backed off a bit. "Uh, yeah. That's me."

Zim automatically knelt to approximate his former 'childhood friend's height. "Wow. I can't believe I'd run into you ever again."

"Again?" Skoodge didn't recognize him for a few seconds and when he did the suspicion turned into a bright happy smile. "WOW! Zim?! Is that you? Really?"

__

Yep. It's him. Zim nodded. Never in a million years he thought he'd ever be happy to see Skoodge. He was the only Irken who considered Zim his friend although the latter didn't think so. Zim was profoundly sorry Skoodge picked him to follow after in his weird form of 'hero worship.' In the past, Skoodge had annoyed him (hell, he annoyed everyone at some point). Yet now he wondered whatever he found so exasperating that he treated this unfortunate little guy so cruelly. Friends were friends whoever – or whatever – they were.

Skoodge held himself back just short of throwing his arms around him. "Wow! I thought you were dead!"

"Everyone did."

All self-control got lost. Skoodge gave Zim a rib brushing bear hug and backed off immediately after. "That's just great. I mean, wow, Zim alive. Who ever would have thought?" He grinned and stood back to get the full perspective. "Man, you got tall!" Aware of those implications he shrank back. "You're not gonna make me do anything demeaning are you?"

"No." Zim thought a second. "Maybe you can help me."

Skoodge winced. He was remembering Hobo 13.

"No! It's nothing crazy or painful. I just want to know where I can get parts for a Voot Cruiser."

His friend's stiff antenna relaxed. "Whew. Yeah. I can help you with that." He started away a few and then gestured for Zim to follow. "You know," the invader commented as they marched along, Gir tagging along behind them. "I'm glad you're alive. I never believed you were dead. Not for a minute."

"Thanks."

Skoodge smirked. "You're Zim. You'd never go out unless it was with a really loud sound of something exploding."

"Probably."

"Man," Skoodge emphasized. "You changed! Acting all humble and stuff. That's not the Zim I remember!"

Thank God. Zim managed to keep a straight face. "I'm not the Zim anyone remembers. The Zim that the Empire remembers died a long time ago. I'm all that's left."

"All what that's left?" Skoodge, for all his success, wasn't too bright. 

"Never mind."

Skoodge shrugged. It made no difference to him, these confusing concepts. A product of society, personal problems ranked low on the list of his concerns in life. A thought sparked him. "Oh! Remember that time I lived in your basement before you strapped that rocket to me and blasted me into space?"

Ouch. Ancient history. "Yes. What about it?"

"Well, I remember you fought with that creepy little human. What happened with that? Did you win?"

"No."

"You lost?!" The invader was astounded. "YOU lost? Zim? . . . . How is that even possible?!"

"It's possible." Zim looked down at the ground. "I lost."

"How?!"

"He died."

"Oh." Skoodge was confused because to him when an enemy died that meant you won. This new enemy-dying-but-still-a-loser thing didn't make sense to him. He caught the weary warning his former comrade threw him. "Okay."

The white noise of the crowd drowned out the uncharacteristic silence that passed between them. Gir pranced around the two in a disorganized, chaotic circle. He desperately, wildly filled in the awkwardness with hoots and monkey screams of pure joy. Zim caught Skoodge cracking out an amused grin watching the SIR and felt a sense of relief. The little squat guy was a bright if gullible invader who possessed the conquest of Blorch and made it halfway through his second mission before, he told Zim, they canned him and cast him out

"You're not alone, Zim," Skoodge spoke up reaching the threshold of the Voot Cruiser parts outlet. "You're not the first Irken that's been kicked out of service. Of course," he amended, "there's always a way back in." Proudly pointing to the store, he said, "Here we are!" It looked like Radio Shack.

Surprised, Zim blinked hard. "How about that! I never would have been able to figure it out. Not this fast." Genuinely grateful he extended his hand to the fellow invader. "Thank you, Skoodge."

Skoodge stared at the proffered hand and frowned. "You're welcome."

Zim took his hand away. He'd forgotten, Irkens didn't shake hands. To make up for it, Zim added. "It's really great seeing you again."

His friend grinned. "Same here." He thought a second. "You know what, Zim? I think I like you better this way."

__

You have no idea what it took to make me this way, buddy. Aloud Zim said, "Yeah, a few people might say that." He glanced toward the parts store and then back at Skoodge. "See you around. I guess."

"Looking forward to it." Skoodge shocked the hell out of him by saluting him. "Good day, sir."

Then, like a lot of people in Zim's life, he was gone.

***

__

Gaz sat on the last bar of the monkey gym reading a book. Whenever a child approached her and demanded she move her arse, Gaz ignored them and redoubled her focus on the page before her. Eventually they would give up and move on to another piece of play equipment.

Once in a while she would look up to make sure she would know when it was time for her class to go back inside. The little kids always went in before the older kids. When she started to go back to the last paragraph, her eye caught a minor commotion all the way across the other side of playground. About to lose interest, she looked again and realized her brother was a part of it. Interested she watched. 

__

A larger kid had stolen Dib's glasses. While the much shorter child made valiant attempts to retrieve them, all the taller kid did was hold them above his head, much to the jeers and delight of those close enough to watch. Her brother's loud pleas came to her all the way from the other side.

"C'mon, give em back," Dib begged. "Please!"

"Nah. Don't feel like it."

Dib stopped hopping and his posture slumped in defeat. "Please?" he begged again more quietly. _"I need them."_

Gaz closed her book and got down. This was starting to concern her. If that big creep broke Dib's glasses, the poor kid wouldn't be able to get a new pair for a while yet.

The bully simply opened his hand and let them drop to the ground. Dib saw and dove to intercept them, falling flat on his stomach, just catching them by the earpieces. When he put them back on and looked up, the bully and the kids were laughing. A few were even pointing. Dib turned a violent shade of red and got to his feet, clamping down on his bottom lip hard. Gaz watched him put both hands on his ears, trying to block out the cruel noise and backing away at the same time. He made it to the edge of the playground and then ducked behind a tree.

Gaz waited until the crowd dispersed itself before moving quickly across the black top to the other side. She hoped Dib wasn't trying to cut skool . . . much as she wished he'd leave her be, if he was going to cut skool she wanted to go with him. 

Drawing close to the tree, Gaz peered around it. Dib was sitting with his back to it, his knees drawn up to his face. Watching him quietly, Gaz noticed his shoulders shook. When he sensed someone there, he lifted his face and moved around a little to look. Tears were running down his face. He hiccuped with sobs and sniffed. Turning away again, he murmured, "Leave me alone."

Ignoring him, Gaz came behind the tree and sat on the ground next to him. Folding her hands in her lap, she sat there and waited.

"Why aren't you laughing?" she heard him ask very softly. 

Gaz scooted a little closer to hear him. She shrugged. He looked up again. His face was a mess. Gaz dug in her pocket and pulled out a small pack of tissues. Dib took one and wiped his face with it. "I'm not crazy, Gaz."

She didn't speak.

He made a fist around the tissue. "I hate them!" he hissed viciously. "I-I wish I could . . . I wish they were all dead. It's going to happen one day, Gaz, and I won't be able to stop. I don't want to because I'm better than that but . . . but I hate them! I hate them!" He made a fist and punched himself repeatedly in the head. Each time he hit himself he did it harder and harder.

He's getting hysterical. Gaz crawled over and made him stop. "Don't hurt yourself." He tried to twist free but his sister tightened her grip and for good measure grabbed his other arm too. "Dib," she gritted her teeth. "Stop it."

When he refused to stop, Gaz pushed him against the tree trunk. She looked him right in the eye. His breath was coming fast and short, his complexion was pale and stark. He was terrified. Looking at his arm, Gaz could see why. "You've been cutting yourself again."

Dib jerked his arm away and yanked his sleeve down over it. "That's none of your business," he snarled.

Gaz smacked him lightly across the face. Startled he touched his cheek. Gaz cursed herself silently when tears filled his eyes again. Feeling rotten for what she just did, Gaz put her arms around him and buried her face in his shirt. "Dib, don't do it," she whispered.

"Do what?"

Gaz felt hot tears spring to her eyes. "Don't hurt yourself anymore. Please."

He said nothing. She could hear his heart beating wildly. She drew back and looked up into his surprised face. It took her a few seconds to realize that she had never hugged her brother. Dib suddenly grabbed her up and gave her a fierce hug before jumping to his feet and running away.

Gaz watched him go and felt lost. Lost and scared. She wished she could tell her brother that he meant everything to her. How for every cut he made, he made a deeper one in her. But how could she? How do you tell someone something like that?

Dib come back . . . don't hurt yourself anymore . . . . please come back.

"Gaz? Gaz? Are you all right?" a hand touched her on the shoulder. "Wake up."

Gaz opened her eyes and saw a pink bathrobe clad Lark standing over her, a concerned look on her face. The room was dark but the light in the next room filtered in gently. Glancing over at the clock, the red numbers read 3:45 a.m. Pulling herself to a sitting position, she went at one eye sleepily with the heel of her hand. "What?"

__

Lark was worried. "I got up for a glass of water and I heard you crying. What's wrong?"

Gaz shook her head. 

Lark sat down on the edge of the bed. "C'mon. People don't cry without a reason. Talk to me."

That's the last thing she wanted to do. Gaz only dropped her gaze to her hands. "I had a dream about my brother."

"Oh." Lark respectfully let a moment of silence pass. "You still miss him, don't you?"

Gaz nodded.

"Do you need a hug?"

__

Yes. "No." Gaz took a deep breath. "God. It's been almost ten years and I can't . . ." she stopped.

"Can't what?"

__

I have to tell someone. Lark wasn't her first choice but she was at least someone. "I can't stop wanting him back, just one more time to tell him I'm sorry for being so horrible to him. Just one time to tell him that I never hated him. Not really." Gaz pulled her knees up. "He was so mad at me . . ." she whispered.

Lark patted her roommate's knee. "Don't beat yourself up. It doesn't help. What happens happens. There's really nothing you can do about it."

Gaz shook her head. "I know. I had a friend once who told me the same thing. He was right. You're right too. Sometimes I forget that. But it doesn't stop me from remembering." She hugged her legs and rested her chin on her knees.

Nodding, Lark smoothed the bedspread. "Yeah." It spurred her memory. "My father died three years ago. It took me a long time to understand Daddy would never again call me to tell me how he's doing and then asking me how I'm doing. I went downhill. For five months I was addicted to sedatives and holed up in my room for days on end. I was a mess, Gaz. Pathetic."

Gaz raised her eyes to Lark. She couldn't imagine this flame haired beauty queen popping pills and curling up in corners. This living human work of art with manicures and a wardrobe large enough to rival the entire cast of _Friends_, had for five months out of a year been a complete ball of misery. _Can it really be like that? Can a person go from the depths of despair and then come out of it looking like a million dollars?_

"How'd you get by it?" Gaz asked grateful all the tears she'd shed during the dream were dry and gone. No itchy red eye reminders, no stinging wetness burning her cheeks.

The other girl gave a half-smile. "It wasn't easy. Time is the key. If you can't turn the clock back, turn it around. Shed light on the dark and just . . . you know . . . walk in it."

Lark shrugged and stood. "Night kiddo."

The light turned off in the other room and all was silent again.

For a few minutes, she sat there, thinking long and hard. Gaz got out of bed and turned her desk lamp on. Grabbing up her laptop, she turned it on and connected to the Net. Locating an address in her address book (all mail she got saved every address to her address book automatically regardless of whether she erased an incoming message).

__

I hope this works. I don't know if it can reach out that far - if it can reach out there at all.

It never hurts to try though. It never hurts to try.

***

Beep! Beep!

Zim backed out of the cargo hold and subsequently banged his head on the lower wing. "OW!" He rubbed at the hurt. "Gir! What did you touch?"

Gir popped up from the other side of the ship. "Nothing! I didn't touch anything!"

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Zim put down a container of supplies. Briefly abandoning his packing, he climbed into the open cockpit. "Then where's that beeping coming from?" Searching around the interior, he spotted his hand held computer lying on the passenger seat. It was open, turned on and its screen announced in the Irken text: MESSAGE RECEIVED.

"Message?" Zim wondered aloud, a question in his voice. He picked it up and hit a few buttons. "Who could be sending me . . ." He saw the address and his mouth dropped open. "Son of a bitch."

Gir popped his head in upside down. "Watch your language!" he squealed and then dropped with a clunk to the ground.

Zim reacted guiltily. He pretended to cut his tongue off and zip his mouth shut. "Apologies Gir. It's what happens to elegant, intelligent beings when they go to human high skool."

He scanned the message for viruses and then opened it.

****

Zim -

I don't know if you'll get this because I don't know how far the Internet reaches. Guess I'll find out soon enough. It's been a long time since we've seen each other. Before you left I have to tell you, I'd almost completely put you behind me. When you sent me that e-mail - for me it was six months ago when you sent it - it just made me realize what a mistake I made in kicking you out of my life. Yeah, guess we could see that coming, huh? All life is completely hopeless without Zim.

Zim laughed and settled back in his seat.

****

As of this, I'm watching the sunrise in my window. My dorm has an excellent view of the east and it's at such an angle that for an hour out of the whole day, my whole room is filled with light. Sometimes it even gets too hot and I have to pull the shades down.

I had a dream last night about my brother. Actually it was a dream of a memory. I'd never had a dream about it before and it was so vivid it was almost like it was real. You weren't there when this happened, I think it happened a month or two before you showed up. It was recess and I was watching this horrible kid steal my brother's glasses. Dib got them back of course but then everyone laughed at him and he was so humiliated he ran off and hid. I followed him and when I found him he was crying. He told me he wanted to kill everyone, not in those words exactly, but he put it across that way. Then he tried to hurt himself and I stopped him.

This isn't the first time I've dreamed about him. But it is the first time in a few years I've had one. I really think there's something wrong with me. My roommate Lark just told me to stop beating myself up about it and whatever happens happens. It's been almost ten years, Zim. Ten years. I mean, when my mother died, I was sad but I was able to move past it. I don't understand why I can't move past this. I thought I had for a little while there but after tonight . . . I'm not so sure.

I hope wherever you are you're okay. I hope you were able to get your hearing and eyesight fixed. Zim without the whole package just isn't Zim.

"You could say that again," Zim murmured.

****

And, I don't know if this makes a difference anymore, but I have to tell you the truth. When I told you I didn't want to be friends anymore, I hadn't wanted that. Not at all. Looking back on that night, I realized how deeply I'd hurt you and for that I'm truly sorry. Cutting you out of my life because of my brother's death didn't make things better. It didn't make them worse but it didn't make them better. I guess your telling me you were leaving should tell me you still care. I just want you to know I still care too.

If you ever return, please come see me. I know you could probably find me wherever I'd be - you're that good, I think ;) Tell Gir I said hi. Oh yeah, and if you happen to find some Irken female companion, just remember I could kick her ass any day of the week. Stay sane.

-Gaz

Zim closed the computer and sat there for a little while. He held no doubt in his mind about that last part. It thrilled him and made him grin and grin like never before. _She still loves me, I can't believe it. After a human boyfriend creature, she'd still rather be with me. Of course, why should this shock me? I am Zim! _

"I knew you were worth it," he said aloud to himself. "I knew it." He climbed out of the cockpit, more sure than ever of where he was going and why he was going there. It was like the sun rising in Gaz's room. Something that could have been hope rose in him, edging out the main resident of despair and suddenly the six months to Earth didn't seem like such a long journey after all.

"Gir," he called. "We're leaving soon so wherever you are, come out because I'm not going to . . ." He never got to finish that sentence.

Suddenly there was an explosion and the lights went out. For a second nothing moved, there was no sound. 

"ALL INVADERS REPORT TO YOUR BATTLESTATIONS. THE MASSIVE IS UNDER ATTACK! THIS IS NO DRILL PEOPLE, MOVE!!"

After that, all hell broke loose.

__


	11. Fortune's Fool

***

When the emergency lights came on, they filled the entire Massive with a harsh red glow. From his perch atop the cruiser, Zim could finally see what was going on. Irkens were scrambling around like crazy. Some jumped into their ships, others passed weapons to each other. Every now and then a violent impact from outside would make the entire vessel shudder and rumble. When that happened, Irkens ducked and covered their heads. Panic caused everyone to scream expletives in their native language, especially the higher ranked individuals who ran around waving their arms, trying to grab back any sense of order.

Throughout the bedlam, Zim just watched. He was the only one sitting still. Gir sat beside him, looking back from the master to his master's fellow Irkens. Somehow to the SIR, there was something his master was probably supposed to be doing. His limited intellect kept what this something was from him leaving him none the wiser.

After the last explosion rocked the Massive, Zim got down and finished reloading his supplies. He moved calmly and quickly. When finished, he climbed into the pilot's seat. Gir plopped down beside him. "Yay! We're gonna fight!"

"No, Gir," Zim corrected him firmly. "We are _not_ going to fight. We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Gir pointed outside. "But they need help!"

Zim clenched his sharp teeth together and asserted his grip on the controls. He set his gaze straight ahead determinedly. "I don't care."

"Oh. Too bad for them." Gir mimed a punch. "Bet you could kick them 'round real good!"

Zim grunted and waited for the dock to open to let all the ships out. When it did, Zim floored it and shot out into space. When he gained a sufficient distance, he slowed and looked back. 

The Massive was surrounded by lots of other smaller ships, some Irken and others belonging to the enemy. Explosions looked like little bursts of light and colored streaks denoted the exchange of laser fire. Near as Zim could make out, these enemy fighter ships belonged to the Resisty, a rebel force that openly defied the Empire's encroaching dominion over the entire universe. They were formidable opponents and the only real threat to the superior might of Irk. Zim remembered saving the Tallest from them once - and bitterly regretted it. Could have solved all his unforeseen problems right there.

The Massive rocked again from another impact. This time it was so large it disconnected the ship from the space station. It was an awesomely devastating sight as little bits of debris scattered miles throughout space.

"Wow," Zim muttered. "This actually _looks_ bad."

Gir spotted something and pointed. "Look at that! WOW!"

Hovering at just the right proximity of distance, Zim noticed something he never noted before. The Resisty's own version of Irk's Massive. It was the one delivering the injurious shots at the steadily disabled Massive. Sooner or later it'd hit a vital spot and the ship would explode.

Irk would be no more.

Torn, Zim placed the heels of his hands to the sides of his face. _I don't owe them anything. ANYTHING! I gave them allegiance and they gave me spit in the face! I do not owe that horrible world and its stupid manipulative Tallest anything! Nothing! They destroyed my life, they made me into . . . into THIS!_

"Isn't _this_ ironic." Zim's voice tinged with sarcastic arrogance. "Look at you. Almighty Irk getting its ass kicked. Not so superior now, are ya? I laugh at your misfortune. HAHAHAHAHAHA!" He clutched his stomach, tears forming in his eyes. He shared his depraved glee with Gir. "Fate has lent us favor, Gir. This is what a twisted sense of justice looks like. Karma is what you get returned. I love it!" He burst out laughing again, banging his fist on the motherboard.

Gir eyes turned red and he droned in his monotone, "Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot."

Zim cut off. "Huh?"

Gir returned to normal and clapped. "I read it on a bumper sticker! Hehehehe!" He hopped up and declared, "I'm gonna go play in the back, 'kay?" Without waiting, he ran to the back of the cruiser. 

Zim sat back and watched as Irk lost more and more ships. His heart said one thing and his head said another. Overwhelmed, he grabbed his antenna and yanked down on them in frustration. "Dammit! No! I don't have to DO this! I am NOT under obligation! What happens to them is not my problem!"

__

"They're your people, Zim. Look in the mirror sometime."

"Dare you tell me what I already know?!" Zim growled and then it caught in his throat. 

There he was. Sitting in the passenger seat, an otherworldly glow surrounding him. Dumbfounded, he could only stare. He hadn't "seen" him since that night in the graveyard. He wanted to hug the thought-form but he knew it was impossible. You can't touch what you can't see.

The Dib apparition leaned back, casually crossed one ankle over the other. _"You need to be reminded every now and again."_

Zim crossed his arms haughtily. "Oh? I suppose you know better. Where were you all this time?"

__

"Buried six feet under, Zim. Sorry," the form grinned. _"Bad joke. You're having another one of your agony fits of moral ambiguity. That's where I come in." _Rather smugly_, _he pointed to himself.

Zim muttered. "I've already made my decision. There _is_ no moral ambiguity. My mind is made up."

__

"Is it?"

"Of _course_ it is!" Zim shouted. "I'm turning this vessel around and I'm going . . ." he faltered slightly. "I'm going home."

__

"And where is home?"

"Well, Irk." Zim gestured helplessly. "But . . . it's not . . ."

Dib saved him the trouble. _"It's not where your heart is. You know the old adage: home is where the heart is. To yours it's with my sister, is it not?"_

Nail on the head. Zim sat down with a thump. "Yes," he said softly. "I have to see her again. If only just for one more time."

Dib smiled. _"Yes and yet you're torn. Why is that?"_

"Why? Ah, were it so simple." Zim forced himself to look at the galactic space battle that raged only a few miles away. "Maybe it's because of how I used to feel about the Tallest. I really looked up to them, Dib. They were all I lived for. I thought there was nothing finer in life than impressing them." He formed a fist and placed it between his eyes. "I was fortune's fool. I can't be that fool again. I won't be that fool again."*

__

"I would do it."

Zim looked up.

__

"Humanity shunned me and I fought you anyway. I hated humanity too but they're my people. To fight for one's principles is easier than living up to them and I vowed to live up to mine no matter what."

"Even if it means saving those who shun you?"

__

"Sometimes you have to do that," Dib replied. _"It's a thankless lot to have in life. But it's a role many play and they never get sung for it."_

Disturbed, Zim rested his chin on his knuckles. "It doesn't seem . . . worth it."

__

"Worth it or not, you have to decide." Dib pointed open-handed to the distant battle. _"You're the only one who has to live with the consequences."_

Zim half-closed his eyes. "Yes. I do." The weight of it bore on him unbearably. "I should have died instead of you." Suddenly it struck him right there, so hard he slammed his back against the seat. Sparkles filled his vision for a moment and he found it hard to breathe. "Oh shit! I can't believe it!" He spread both hands against the windshield. "I vowed never to use it again but . . . maybe . . ." He took a deep breath and looked over at the Dib-form. "Should I?"

Dib smiled. _"The best way to envision the future is to invent it." _And then he was gone.

Zim grinned and took hold of the controls. Elation and a hardened sense of resolve filled him. "Gir, we're going to help save Irk."

Gir popped up front and cheered. "Yay!"

__

***

"No, Lark, I'm NOT going."

Lark Atwater clasped both hands together. "Please, Gaz. I can't get anyone else to come with me. Please, please, _please_."

Gaz didn't look up from her Latin textbook. She was sitting Indian style in the makeshift living room on a beat up old brown armchair. She was trying to translate a whole page of text and in her personal opinion, it required a sustained peace and quiet. Gaz gritted her teeth together and made an annoyed grunt. 

Lark used her index finger to gently force the book down so she could see her roommate's face. "No one else wants to come. You're my last hope."

"That's pretty pathetic." Gaz yanked back and then leaned forward to write a word on a piece of notebook paper. "If I'm your last hope, then you weren't looking hard enough."

Sighing, Lark straightened up and raked her fingers through her reddish bangs. "You don't even know who the tickets are for go seeing and you're saying no. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"Nope."

"Gaz, c'mon. Ask me what the tickets are for."

__

I will destroy her. A very bored Garfield like expression on her face, Gaz let out a long-suffering exhalation. "What are the tickets for?" _Not Star Wars, not Star Wars,_ she prayed. _And if it's anything involving Freddie Prinze, Jr. I am resigning from the human race in protest._

Lark leaned in and whispered it in her ear.

Gaz jerked back a little and stared at her. "No shit. Show me the stubs."

Smiling Lark produced them and handed them to Gaz who couldn't snatch them away fast enough. Staring at them with round amber eyes, she shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm holding these."

Lark laughed.

Gaz looked up again. "How in the world did you manage to get them?"

"I cut chemistry yesterday to get 'em. That's when they went on sale."

Of course. Leave it to Lark to decide what she held in the greatest esteem. Gaz's forehead furrowed and she handed them back. "Lark, you shouldn't cut chem. It's finals week for chrissake."

The red head picked up her pocketbook and put the tickets in her wallet. "So? I think tickets to THEIR concert is worth every finals week. I'd cut graduation for these guys."

She would. A wry grin played across Gaz's lips. "Tell me again why you're going to college."

"Because in order to become an aeronautical engineer you need a degree in that kind of engineering." Lark found a rubber band and gathered her hair up. "What are you studying so hard for? I should think computer programming should be a cinch for a genius like you. Not to mention that dead language you're staring at."

Gaz's eyes had dropped back to the book. "I'm blessed with the typical perfectionist's attitude. It'll show on my record."

The other girl laughed. 

"Fine," Gaz spoke in a singsong way. "Laugh all you want. You'll see."

Lark tugged on Gaz's ponytail. "Whatever, girl. So are you coming or not? It's tonight."

Wait, this was a change. She thought about it. "Okay. I'll go."

Lark jumped up. "Yes!"

Gaz held up a warning to back up her assent. "BUT. If you're using this as an opportunity to act like a total moron in the presence of the lead singer, I will leave you there for the wolves to devour. Weeks later when they finally find your body, they'll be nothing left but bones and a few torn pieces of your Ralph Lauren tank top. Due to open-air exposure and the voracious appetite of early decomposition, only dental records will be able to identify you. Since the tests will be inconclusive you will be buried in an unmarked grave in the darkest creepiest corner of the cemetery. While the vines slowly and surely entwine around your headstone, only your sudden absence from the top of the pyramid in cheerleading class will leave any shadow of a doubt in their minds of what really happened to Lark Calandra Atwater." 

By the time she reached the end of it, she was topping it off with a real sense of malicious relish. There was an evil twinkle in her eye.

All during the telling of the morbid tale, Lark stared at her with this deadbeat stare. Finally she came to a conclusion. "Gaz, honey, you need help."

__

Say you say we all. Gaz put her book away and sat back down again. "Am I the only one you managed to convince or are any of your life-sucking female members of the prep squad coming?"

"I only got two tickets. Besides," Lark dipped her chin guiltily. "My boyfriend, he, uh, we're having some problems. You see we were supposed to go and . . ."

__

I knew it was too good to be true. "So I'm your pity company."

"Uh, yeah. If you WANT to look at it that way," Lark said uneasily. "But his loss, eh?"

__

Excellent, I get to spend the entire night listening to her bitch about the man-in-the- tenuous-position-of-being-the-One. Gaz shook her head. "Lark, sometimes when I think we're getting to be friends, I don't know. Sometimes I wonder about you."

"About me?" Lark reacted with surprise. She reached over and tugged on Gaz's shirt. It had a picture of Marvin the Martian on it with the words ISN'T THAT LOVELY? under his image. "Really, Gaz."

"I _like_ this shirt." Gaz delivered it with all the threatening promise of a death sentence.

Defensively Lark held up both hands. "Hey, no offense meant." Beep, beep. Wordlessly Lark smacked herself in the head, grabbed a textbook off the coffee table and bolted out the door. Even from inside the dorm, you could hear the squeaky sound of her tennis shoes on the linoleum floor.

Again, the mysteries of time and space yield yet another promising result.

Gaz checked her watch and rolled her eyes. An hour to go until individual studies. Getting up, she wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Her mouth fell open. Her eyes narrowed into two slits of evil.

"Lark drank the last soda." A smile crept on her face. "She will pay." Shaking her head at herself, Gaz grabbed a can of pineapple juice. Coming back into the living room, she picked up the pile of unopened mail off the counter. Rapidly going through them, she wandered around in a semi-circle.

"Bills, bills, junk, another bill, junk, junk, subscription to Playgirl." A flagitious smirk skittered across Gaz's face. "Oh Lark, how well do I know thee." She continued. "Free ESP reading (yeah right), letter from Membrane." She folded it in half and tossed it in the pile with the junk mail. It was just another 'form letter' he sent every month. He thought by doing that he was doing his playing daddy bit. "Another bill (hey I paid that!), University of . . ." Gaz trailed off and stared at the last envelope in her hand. She double- checked the return address to make sure it had her name in the corner. It did.

Shaking her head, Gaz made sure she sat herself down. She'd been applying constantly since early fall, hoping desperately she could transfer out of this hellhole into some place better, some place more prestigious. This letter could change her life forever. For bad or for good.

Knowing her kind of luck, she knew better than to hope for the latter.

Gaz braced herself and then tore into the envelope with the necessary amount of ferocity. 

Unfolding the letter, she took one moment to wallow in the tension before opening her eyes to the result.

Bringing both feet to the floor, she stood up. Her mouth hung open. Clutching the paper in her hands, the shock slowly turned to that of complete excitement. In agony she looked around. "There's no one here." She looked at it again and then a bright smile spread across her face. Standing on the couch, Gaz indulged herself and made a victory pose. "I GOT IT! I GOT THE GRANT!"

She jumped down and for the only time in her life, she wished she had a bottle of Merlot to break against someone's head. 

Gaz calmed down and made herself sit. "I got the grant," she talked out loud. "That means . . . that means I'm moving out of the godforsaken city and this miserable town! Away from Membrane, away from Lark, away from everyone." She laughed and cried at the same time. Never had she felt this happy in her whole entire life. And it was happening because of her, her credentials, her accomplishments, her. No one else. Her.

__

Me. This letter is everything I get to be because I made it happen. I made something good happen for myself.

Gaz went to the window and opened it. Sticking her head out, she inhaled deeply and then let it out with a loud sigh of contentment.

__

Nightmare world just lost another resident.

***

However, in the greater scheme of things, the residents of nightmare world moved in and out of the neighborhood constantly. In a ceaseless amazing chain of coincidences this often meant while one sun shone down upon one's fortune, another unseen source of illumination darkened upon another's.

"All right, Gir," Zim muttered quietly to his servant. "I am going to need your obedience in the absolute. That means you do what I tell you exactly. Exactly."

"Yes sir!"

"Good." 

Zim put on a residual stealth shield and stopped his cruiser just outside the Resisty's area of radar reach. Instead of mixing it up with the other fighters near the Massive, Zim had a different strategy in mind. Rather than subject his ineffective Voot's defenses to the far more superior might of the enemy's, he decided to use its other capabilities, namely him.

Zim made certain the ship would remain where it was and then started to suit up in his space gear.

"Gir," he spoke to the rigid SIR who waited since commanded to do so. "I need you to watch my back. Keep an eye on the radar and monitor any incoming transmissions. If I need help, I will tell you I need it. Do not make any move without my consent or knowledge. Do you understand so far?"

Gir nodded.

"Excellent. Now Gir, listen closely. I am going to place an explosive on their main firing mechanism. I'd do it from here but unfortunately if I do that, the enemy will see us. Only by working directly touching the hull can I move in complete secrecy. Now this explosive probably won't destroy their ship nor will it destroy the weapon. But I am hoping the explosion will throw off the trajectory enough so the Massive can reactivate its shields. Of course, the Massive's shields need time to recharge and unfortunately the number of pauses between enemy fire has made that all but impossible." Zim looked toward the doomed Irken vessel. "I am hoping I can buy them that needed time." 

He looked back at Gir. "Please tell me you got all that."

Gir nodded. "Yes."

Zim eyed him. "All right, what am I doing?"

Gir remained silent.

Zim smacked himself on the forehead. "E enu ivee tensa!" he grumbled in his native tongue. "LISTEN. I am going to make something explode and I need you to watch to make sure nothing stops me from making that happen! Do you understand NOW?!"

Gir smiled sweetly. "I like explosions!"

"Gir. . ."

"Yes, sir, I obey!" Gir saluted. "Stand guard while you place explosive on firing mechanism and save the Massive from imminent destruction. Yay."

Zim made two fists and hissed, "Yes! There's hope for you yet, my evil henchman." He pressed a button on his suit and his invisible helmet went over his head to protect it from Out There.

His SIR giggled inanely, tainting the veracity of that claim. He waved gaily after Zim opened the cockpit and activated his rockets. "Bye-bye!" he called watching his master becoming smaller and smaller as he drew closer to the enemy vessel.

***

Deep inside the Massive, Purple covered his head as another explosion rocked the ship. "We're going to die!" He was under a table in a ball of fear. "I never got to finish my last candy bar! I was saving that you know!"

Red, meanwhile, crawled out from his hiding place and looked out into space over the top of a computer terminal switchboard. "It looks bad." Frightened, he looked over at his partner in the Empire. "I think we're throwing our towel in."

Purple uncovered his head. "No. . . You don't mean . . ."

Red nodded sadly. 

Purple moaned. "Nooooo! We're the Irken Empire! Superior beings don't die at the hands of those less superior than them! That's just dumb!"

Red couldn't believe it either however he voiced it in a more realistic less hysterical manner. "We may have to surrender." He sat down with his back to the computer. He stared straight ahead, stunned. "I can't believe I said that."

Purple flinched when an enemy collided with the ship nearest to their quarters, making it rock again wildly for the hundredth time. Then he crawled over to his co-ruler. "There's got to be something we can do. There aren't any defenses we've overlooked have we?"

"No." Red still kept staring straight ahead. "We've exhausted everything." He made a frustrated sound. "I don't understand! How did they get so . . . so powerful? Where did they get that kind of brute force?" He punched the floor. "And why is it no one knew about it?!"

Purple shrugged. "So what should we do? We're dying out there, Red. Look," he pointed to a grid on the wall. All the life signs of the Irkens flying their battle ships were flat except for maybe three or four. "It's going to take eighty years to train that many more pilots." It hit him. "Oh no . . ." Sanity lost from his eyes. "No, no, no . . ."

Red saw his counter part losing it and grabbed him by his shoulders. "Snap out of it! That's not helping me think!"

"You can still THINK?" Purple said in a high pitched voice.

Red didn't answer. He just crawled over to a computer panel where a now-dead technician was sitting. Pushing the body out of the chair, Red sat in it. Purple got up and came to his side. "What are you doing?"

Red turned and looked at his co-ruler wearily. "There's two options left."

Purple looked from the computer and back at Red again. "What are they?"

Red took a deep breath. "We surrender or . . . self-destruct."

"Surrender?" Purple became faint. "You mean . . . that's it?" A darkness passed over him. "The Irken Empire doesn't surrender."

"Right." Red didn't look happy about it. "You know what that means."

Purple paled. "I do." Pause. "So where's the self-destruct?"

Both leaders looked around and then back at each other.

"You mean you don't know?" Red asked his eyes snapping open.

"No! I thought YOU knew!" Purple objected indignantly.

"Me?! Why would I know?!"

"Because you're the Tallest!"

"Excuse me, ahem, don't want to be rude but YOU'RE the Tallest too!" Red shouted back. He smacked himself on the forehead. "It's going to take a miracle at this point."

Purple reached into his pocket and took out a candy bar. "That's it. I'm eating this. Want half?"

Red shrugged and put his hand out. "Why the hell not?"

***

Lightly, Zim crawled over the ship's hull, only the tops of his boots and the tips of his claws in contact with its surface. He paused every now and then to take deep breaths. He didn't like to admit this readily but he was scared. His heart was pounding wildly and whenever he lifted a hand to crawl, he noticed it shook. For a second, he took time out to made a fist and steel his nerves. He could do this. He had to do this. Irk's survival depended on it.

Still despite his dedication to the task, he couldn't help wondering if this was indeed the right thing he was doing. Whatever the true principle behind the Resisty's rebellion, its logistics probably adhered to his line of thinking. But it was like Dib said. Despite his hatred for the Empire, they were his people. They were what he was a product of. They were why he was here. If for no reason other than that, he was going to save them.

For several minutes he inched slowly and carefully over the hull. He took deep breaths. Think about something else. Anything. Pick something.

__

Zim walked home from skool along his usual route. He stopped when a kitten crossed his path. The animal stopped too and stared at him. Kneeling, he put his hand out to the tiny gray creature like he'd seen human children do. The creature investigated his claw and then rubbed its furry face against his knuckle. He found himself smiling and he scratched the animal under its chin. It sat down and stretched its neck out, perfectly content to sit there and let Zim pet it.

"Wow."

Zim frowned and looked over his shoulder. Dib stood there and stared at Zim petting the cat. "Wow what, stink-beast?"

The human shook his head. "That's the first time I've seen you go near an animal without running away screaming first."

Zim gave the kitten a final stroke along the length of its back before standing up. "This only proves how really little you know of me, earth creature." He squinted one eye at his rival. "What did you expect me to do? Light its tail on fire? Attach alien devices to its back and let it destroy your city?" He smirked. "All of those would be fun but I cannot resort to such cruelty toward dumb creatures. Of course," he smiled at Dib evilly, "you are the extreme exception to the rule."

Dib crossed his arms. "Honored, truly." There was no gladness in his voice. "No, seriously, Zim. That little display tells me you're not as ruthless and unyielding as you like to say you are. Of course I suspected this all along."

Zim put two fists on his hips. "What are you getting at?"

Dib shrugged. "Exactly what I said, space boy."

The alien came close as he dared to the trench coat clad human and pointed in his face. "However you think, it won't help your chances for victory. I hope you know that."

"I do."

Zim lowered his hand. "Then why say anything at all?"

Dib only grinned. "I just love watching you get your act on."

"What?!" Zim's eyes went round. "I ENTERTAIN you?"

"This shocks you." Dib stated it in a self-satisfied manner. "Oh boy. So many possibilities."

Zim grabbed the edge of the human's coat. Dib stopped smiling and pulled back nervously. He removed his eye lenses so his enemy had to stare into his blood red eyes. "You think me a fool for your pleasure. Well, think of it no more, sadly misguided flesh creature. Your entertainment ends here."

"Wh-What are you going to do?" Dib replied very quietly.

Zim backed off and put his contacts back on. "At present, nothing. Now that I know how seriously you take me, I know how far I can go with you."

Dib's eyes widened.

Zim smiled. "Oh it is nothing so insidious. You have your entertainment value as well. Prove me wrong about that and you'll get something for all your troubles, Dib."

For a second Dib lost his tongue. Then he regained it. "What would I get?"

He kept the grin on. "Credit."

The human frowned and made an angry gesture. "From who, Zim? FROM WHO?!"

The alien backed away and winked. "Me." And without staying to observe the human's reaction, he made for home fast.

__

Probably the most decent conversation we ever had, Zim thought stopping to rest. "Okay, where am I?" He lifted his head somewhat and looked around. Suddenly he grinned. There it was. Carefully he activated the gravity on his boots and stood up. Blithely he marched up the mechanism and knelt just under the weapon. It chose to fire right then, causing him to grab the sides of his space helmet and at the same time grab onto the base of the weapon (it looked like a cannon out of a Star Wars film) to keep from flying out into space. He could only be grateful there wasn't any sound in space or else he'd be deaf. Again. 

"All right, that was annoying," he muttered crawling nimbly onto the weapon. "Now where's the mechanism? Ah! There it is." He watched it kick back and click forward (without the audible click) projecting a ball of fire with deadly accuracy right at the Massive. Helplessly Zim watched the Massive rock wildly from the impact. He noticed the fighters in the distance were becoming fewer and fewer. Hmm, that meant the battle was coming close to an end. Win or lose, the Resisty would then notice him when they would do a cursory scan for hull damage. Have to make this quick.

Zim reached back into his pak and pulled out the explosive. Manipulating the tiny thing onto the mechanism, his fingers worked quickly to attach it securely before it could kick back again. He waited for a few seconds, watching it fire again to make sure it remained stuck. It did.

Satisfied, Zim set the detonation switch attached to his wrist and then quickly moonwalked across the hull. When the Voot came within sight he called into his communicator. "Gir!"

"Yes sir!"

"I'm deactivating my gravity. You're going to have to catch me. Copy?"

"Copy!"

Zim switched off. He took a deep breath and shut off his boots. "Here's to infinity and its many outcomes."

Free floating away from the enemy vessel, he spread his arms and pushed back with his feet to get the maximum thrust. Gir maneuvered the Voot at the right angle and caught Zim on his momentum. Looking back at the ship and the growing miles between himself and it, Zim brought his arm around and pressed the detonation switch. "See you in hell."

The explosion came as a small burst out orange and yellow light. Zim's mouth dropped open. Just as the thing blew, the weapon chose to fire again mid trigger, which caused an internal eruption. It set off a chain reaction. First it destroyed the cannon completely and then hurried along either side of the vessel. Reaching the engines, it made them explode as well. And as everyone knows, when the engines on a space ship are destroyed, it carries the same sentence on to the rest of the body as well.

"This isn't what I had in mind," Zim gulped and then he panicked when he realized what was happening. "Oh shit! Gir, we've gotta get out of here! That thing's not going to be done exploding for a while!"

He hit the button that said THIS MAKES YOUR SHIP LOOK LIKE A BLUR. Aiming for the nearest and safest direction, he chose the Massive and headed right toward it. In his escape from destruction, he passed the fleeing enemy fighters who was just as shocked as anyone to see their mother ship become reduced to salvage material right before their eyes.

Several moments passed. Quietly the lone Voot drifted toward the Massive and Irk at a regular, steady pace.

When the enemy was, in effect, to be seen no more, Gir began to cheer. "Hooray for Irk! Hooray for master! Hooray for meeeeeee!"

Zim shared in his robot's happiness with a sheepish grin. "Yeah. I guess we did pretty good on the save-the-day thing, huh?"

Gir only hugged him. "I did good."

"Yes," Zim told him. "You did good."

Gir hugged himself and sat there, doing just that for a little while.

Manning the controls, Zim steered toward the Massive. "C'mon. The battle may be over but the war's still hanging on around here somewhere. How annoying is that?"

"Not as annoying as having no tacos!" Gir replied abruptly.

Zim just chuckled.

***

*reference to Romeo and Juliet with no metaphor intended. For those who don't read Shakespeare, after Romeo kills Tybalt, he realizes what he's done and screams, "I am fortune's fool!" Which I think means that even though he got something good, he was a fool for believing in it. That's only my interpretation of course. ;) 


	12. Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get...

Disclaimer: Lyrics are from Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." (Hey, that's the second time Garfunkel's shown up in this fic!) Other lyrics are from "Stairway to Heaven" by, who else, Led Zepplin.

Gaz decided not to tell Lark the good news until after the concert. Supposedly she thought by doing this she'd be saving both of them a night of mopiness. The cheerleader was already deep in a funk about her Romeo ditching additional make-out time in insistence that he was the one who'd been wronged in their little play drama. Why make it worse? Gaz usually loved ruining the day and raining on parades but she decided to spare Lark's feelings on account of the concert. She knew this news would depress the beauty queen. Grudgingly Gaz had to admit to herself that Lark _did_ like her a lot and she felt weird about hurting anyone who tried to be her friend.

Lark drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and sang along to the radio. Gaz made a particular point to squeeze her small body into the furthest corner of the car closest to the window. Bleakly, she watched the nightlife fly by.

" _'There's a feeling I get when I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving/In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees and the voices of those who stand looking. . .' " _ Lark sang with full gusto, seemingly unaware of the melancholic intent behind the lyrics nor the limits of the patience of sentient beings. 

_If she doesn't stop drumming her hands, I'll. . . when I think of it she won't like it._ Gaz squirmed in her seat like an impatient four year old and wished to God for a pair of earmuffs. Or a sock to stick in Lark's mouth.

_" ' . . . . oh oh oh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven . . .' "_

Gaz tore her gaze away from the hypnotic light laced darkness. "Lark, could you put something a little less irritating on?"

Lark quit chirping. "Like what? And since when is Led Zepplin irritating?"

_Since you decided to turn it into a sing-a-long,_ Gaz replied in her head. Out loud she said, "It's not. I'm just not in the mood." She gestured with her hand toward the car stereo. "Put something else on."

Lark shrugged, ejected the CD and stuck in another without looking. Oh nice. It could be anything.

_"Hello darkness my old friend_

_I've come to talk with you again . . ."_

Gaz shot Lark a look. "You brought your soundtrack to _The Graduate_?!"

Lark shrugged. "I liked the movie."

"Ew."

_"Because a vision slowly creeping,_

_Left its seeds while I was sleeping. . ."_

"Ew?" Her roommate glanced at Gaz briefly, keeping both eyes on the road. "Ew what?"

"That movie was gross."

"Gross? It's a work of period art from the 60s!" her old skool loving friend exalted. "It shows the degradation of traditional family values and a disillusionment of the younger generation!"

_"And the vision that was planted in my brain_

_Still remains_

_Within the sound of silence."_

Gaz snorted. "You'd think you made the movie from listening to you. Besides." She returned to staring into the passing scenery. "I'm living it. I don't need to hear about it."

"You mean your bf's sleeping with your mother and dating you at the same time?" The girl sure knew how to say stupidity and give it a name and a face.

"No. It's just . . . oh you wouldn't understand."

Lark stopped at a red light and looked at her passenger encouragingly. "Try me."

No way. Gaz shook her head. There were some things better left untalked about. "Maybe some other time." Maybe some other time, yeah right. Maybe never was more like it.

_"In restless dreams I walked alone_

_Narrow streets of cobblestone,_

_'Neath the halo of a street lamp,_

_I turned my collar to the cold and damp_

_When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light _

_That split the night_

_And touched the sound of silence."_

"You know," Lark said softly. "It doesn't hurt to talk about it. I mean, you already know that don't you?"

Gaz shrugged.

"C'mon, Gaz. I don't feel like I know you."

_Good. Exactly what I've been trying to do all along. Nice to know something I do in this world works._

She pressed on. "Whenever I walk by your room if you're reading something you slam the book closed and if I catch you writing, you always hide it. If you're watching TV you switch channels or shut it off." Lark shook her head, her long silvery earrings dangling. "Oh yeah, and that couple of nights ago wasn't the first time I've heard you crying alone in your room." 

Slowly Gaz moved her eyes and focused them on Lark. They narrowed in the darkness of the vehicle.

_"And in the naked light I saw_

_Ten thousand people maybe more_

_People talking without speaking_

_People hearing without listening_

_People writing songs that voices never share_

_And no one dared_

_Disturb the sound of silence."_

Meanwhile her friend kept on going. "Look, whatever it is that makes you keep to yourself the way you do, I only want to say, you don't have to keep doing that. It's okay to be yourself."

_"Fools" said I, "You do not know_

_Silence like a cancer grows._

_Hear my words that I might teach you_

_Take my arms that I might reach you."_

_But my words like silent raindrops fell_

_And echoed_

_In the wells of silence."_

Lark moved her shoulders, trying to remove the dreadful unease come over her. "Please say something. I feel stupid talking to myself."

"Something."

A tiny smile spread across Gaz's face while Lark laughed and moved on to another subject: the leader of the band they were going to see. It was accompanied by many an eye flutter and a, "God, I cannot wait to see him. I'm gonna die if he looks at me!"

Gaz bit on her bottom lip. _Oh I so cannot wait to get out of this car._

_"And the people bowed and prayed_

_To the neon god they made._

_And the sign flashed its warning_

_In the words that it was forming._

_And the signs said The words of the prophets_

_Are written on subway walls_

_And tenement halls._

_And whisper'd in the sounds of silence. . . ."_

The CD went through a few more oldies before Gaz took charge of the musical situation. She reached into the backpack on the floor between her feet, grabbed a System of a Down CD and shoved it in. A slow sure smile stretched across her face as she listened to the opening notes of "ChopSuey" and Lark's groan of mortal agony.

Life was good.

***

"Did you know?" Lark said excitedly as they crossed the parking lot to the stadium where the concert was being held. "That this is their first world tour? They've never gone on tour before! Been around ten years and they never went on tour! How insane is that?"

Gaz held her coat together and let her eyes wander around, subconsciously taking in with a degree of amazement how many young people were there. She was shocked they'd been able to find decent parking, especially since they'd come in at the tail end of the herd.

"Atwater, what makes you think I care about that?" she replied sensibly. "So what?"

Lark made a face. "Well, I think it's pretty strange."

"Lots of bands don't tour."

"Name one."

Gaz made a sound of disbelief. "I don't have to justify myself to you."

The other girl looked taken aback by the end-all statement. "Whoa, why are you getting so mad all of a sudden?"

Gaz only glanced at her and smiled disarmingly. "Sorry. Nothing, I'm just worried we won't get good seats."

"Gaz, it's a stadium," Lark rationalized. "Every seat is a good seat!" She struck what Gaz came to fancy as an anime girl cheer pose and squealed. "Yes! We're here! I can't believe we're here!"

_She's worse than my brother. _Gaz rolled her eyes and pointed to the entrance where a huge line had formed. It was growing longer by the second. "We going in or what? I'm freezing my ass off out here."

Lark sobered and stepped in line beside her roommate. The girls spent a few minutes in silence. Gaz quietly surveyed her surroundings, rocking gently back and forth on the balls of her heels. Lark hopped up and down, hugging herself. The beads attached to her blue and green scarf clicked together. Suddenly she gave another squeal, this one of recognition. "Oh my God!" She waved and stepped out of line a little. "Cris! Tia!"

Two figures near the front raised their hands in greeting, screaming girlish sounds of excitement. Practically forgetting that Gaz was standing right there, Lark left the line and went to go talk to them. Gaz filled in the space left behind while the person behind her did the same. Heaving a great sigh of relief, she basked in her solitude. _Yes_, she thought nodding a little. _I am definitely going to take that college up on the money. If I have to stand one more second of this_ Beverly Hills, 90210_ drama, I'll surely go crazy_.

_Too late for that. Hehe. I'm morbid._

The line moved along quickly enough. She was relieved to be able to take off half the layers she'd put on and sit down. It was a very good seat, she thought taking out a disposable camera and winding the film. All the way near the top too_. These pictures will come out good. _

Lark showed up many minutes later, looking flustered and about as annoyed as a cheerleader could be. Not at Gaz but at the difficulty she had in getting to her seat. She complained about certain people and informed Gaz on where she'd been and whom she'd been talking to all this time. Finally she ended her spiel with an apology and a question about photography and whether or not film was readily on hand. Gaz held up the camera, which had been in plain sight the entire time. Lark gave an embarrassed start.

"It's okay," Gaz decided it was time to take the girl's batteries out. "Look, you're here, you're safe and we've got a camera. The band hasn't even come on stage yet and you're out of breath already. By the time HE appears, you'll be in cardiac arrest."

Lark snorted and blew out of her mouth. "Guess that goes back to the wolves, huh?" She smiled when she said it.

Gaz smiled back. "Nah." It was a good moment.

The lights dimmed, the stage lit up and the crowd started to cheer. Lark whipped out a lighter and joined the crowd. Gaz just sat there and took pictures, focusing on the good-looking bandleader. She was amazed how in person a human being could look even better than they did on the album cover. No wonder Lark was nuts for the guy. Every now and then she'd put the camera down and just watched and listen. After each set, she clapped whilst everyone around her lost it and screamed their lungs out. _Animals_, she thought.

"YOU SUCK!"

Startled, Gaz looked down to see what moron had decided to grace one thousand fans with his presence and why he would be stupid enough to do that. There. Third row down, seven people in. It was easy to pick him out, he was the only one still standing. 

He made a fist and shook it at the band. "THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT IS! HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW, HUH?!"

Lark sniveled at him. "What a retard." Her eyes snapped open and she squinted at him. "Oh God, Gaz."

"What?" Gaz had chosen to divert her attention elsewhere. "What's the matter?"

Lark tugged on her arm. "Look who it is."

_Oh no, no, no . . ._ Gaz looked and immediately slouched down in her seat. A moan escaped from her lips as she covered her face with both hands to hide the red. 

Lark watched two security officers wade their way in and drag the still jeering and raging man out. A few people sitting near him clapped in relief. "Seriously, what did you see in that mental case? Physically maybe a good time but you pay a hefty price for the goods."

Gaz sat up and shot her friend an incredulous stare. "We're in public, Lark."

"You don't like innuendo?" Lark grinned and stretched. "Let me ask you something, since it's intermission. A personal question."

Gaz eyed her suspicious. "All right."

"Is he your first?" Lark made gestures. "You know?" Girl sure knew how to be blunt.

Gaz fought back a flush. "No."

Lark seemed surprised. "No? Really? You're so . . . virginal."

"For the love of. . . Lark, please!" Gaz exclaimed in disgust. "First of all, oh my God and second of all, no he's _not_ my first."

Genuinely curious and seeing an opening for unknown factoids, Lark gave her complete undivided attention. "Who?"

"I don't wanna . . ."

"Oh c'mon."

"Well. . ."

"Please?" Lark pleaded. "I promise I'll never, _ever_ ask another question like that again."

Gaz sighed. "Zim. His name was Zim." 

The other girl had the decency to lean in and invite Gaz to speak lower. It showed at least the beginnings of some sense. "How was it?"

Another sigh. "Let's just say he liked it a hell of a lot better than I did."

Lark laid off instantly and nodded, sitting back in her seat. "Don't they all?" Intermission ended on that note and thankfully for the next hour no more conversation was exchanged.

***

After the concert ended, Gaz needed to use the restroom. Lark wanted to talk to her friends whom she met outside the souvenir shop and was more than happy to let Gaz take her sweet time.

Take her sweet time she did.

Gaz entered the 'potty palace' (as she fondly remembered calling it in her childhood years) and halted. Regular toilets and urinals on the wall. A sign on the wall said: TWO TOGETHER IS BETTER THAN TWO APART.

"That is disgusting." Gaz muttered, walking over to the sink (which barely qualified in terms of sanitation purposes). Out the corner of her eye, she spotted a lanky trench coat clad young man with spiked hair lying against the wall, a bottle sitting next to him, the tell-tale sign of his present condition. She walked over to him, took note of his presence with hands on her hips and then entered a stall on the far end. While sitting there, she endured his echoing, drunken mutterings bouncing off the walls. When she was finished, she walked over to the sink and washed her hands. Then she went over the hand drier on the wall he was leaning against and let the hot air blow her hands dry. She put her coat back on and turned to leave.

"Gaz . . ." the figure spoke.

She dropped her head, shook it and then turned around. "What, Johnny?"

He opened his eyes and tried to focus on her. He kind of thought about it and shook his head. "Never mind." He flopped a hand dismissively.

She started out the door and stopped. _Dammit_. Her conscience was pulling on her. _No,_ she told herself firmly. _No, no, NO! Don't ever think twice around HIM. There are no options when it comes to him so don't even think about it!_

_Yeah_. Gaz felt better walking to the door. _I'm doing the right thing._

"GET BACK HERE!!"

Gaz halted again and whipped around fiercely. "What?" she delivered it like a threat.

Johnny struggled to sit up. "I need help."

"You got that right."

Plaintively, he peered at her. Only when he was drunk did Johnny show any weakness that was far cry from his sober cold-hearted self. "I can't walk. My car's too fer away." Johnny childhood home was Savannah, Georgia so once in a while a trace of an accent filtered out. 

Gaz came over and knelt beside him, searching his pockets until she found a pair of car keys. All the while, he was giving her this dumb happy look. "Yer pretty, whut's yer name?"

_Oh please_. Gaz shook her head. "Johnny, lay off the liquor willya? It's Gaz, you dummy. You just said my name a few minutes ago."

"What the fuck are you talkin' about?" he muttered watching her dully as she put his keys in her own coat pocket. "You can't be Gaz cos Gaz's pretty and yer pretty too and no un' prettier than her so's. . ."

"So's you better shut up before I give you something to cuss about." Gaz was in no mood for this. "Here, put your arm around me and lean." They stood up. Since Johnny was taller than she was, Gaz had to hunker down a bit to accommodate his weight. She felt ill when she smelled the alcohol on him. "I swear Johnny. I ought to just leave you here to rot." Gaz used her free elbow to push open the bathroom door. "You're just not worth it for a caring person."

"You care . . ."

"No, Johnny, I don't."

"Then why you helping me?" his voice became clearer now. "I don't mean shit to you. I don't mean it to nobody, I never ever did . . . I never meant nothing to you."

"Oh Johnny . . ." Gaz sighed scanning the parking lot for Johnny's distinctive green Buick. These were the keys to it so she figured that's the car he'd taken to get here. "You're going overboard. People care about you. What about your parents?"

"My parents don't care 'bout me."

"They might. Did you ever ask them?" It was easy talking to a drunk Johnny. Just pretend he was a child and you were good to go.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"'Cos I don't know who my parents are."

Oh. She felt that one keenly enough. Johnny was like her in the personal information department. All the while she'd been dating him, she never knew about his family. Never knew much at all about him really except he was crazy and an ex-convict on parole. 

"Sorry."

"Doesn't matter." He kind of craned his neck to look at her. "How come you don't love me anymore?"

Gaz didn't take the question seriously. She focused on finding the car instead. "We're not right for each other and I told you, you scare me."

"I didn't wanna scare you," he slurred. "I love you."

This was going nowhere fast. Gaz sighed again and found the car. She ducked out from under his arm and leaned him against the vehicle while she pulled out the keys and unlocked the door. "Johnny, don't say things you don't mean."

"But it's the truth," he skipped from one word to the other. "So how come you don't love me?"

Gaz opened the passenger side and pushed him in. No way was she letting him drive, not like this. "We'll talk about it when you're sober, okay? Stay there and don't move. I have to tell Lark I'm driving you home."

"'Kay." Then abruptly he passed out. Yeah, he was gonna stay put.

She found her still talking to her social clones Cris and Tia. Taking Lark off to the side, she explained the situation, trying to sound as embarrassed as possible. Lark nodded the whole time, eyeing her knowingly in a 'Yeah, I still think you got it bad for him' kind of way. Gaz chose to ignore it. 

"I'll be needing someone to pick me up though," Gaz finished up. "His apartment's not exactly five blocks away." It was three miles across town.

Lark patted her on the arm. "I'll do it. And, ah, if you feel like spending the night I won't hold it against you." She winked.

_Does she have it on the brain or something?_ Gaz wondered. _Sheesh_. She clenched her teeth together. "I'm only making sure Johnny doesn't break anymore laws tonight. Especially by driving under the influence." She trailed off. Her mind was going back in time. It took a touch from Lark to bring her back again. 

"Hey, you okay?"

"I'm fine." Distracted, Gaz started back to the Buick. "I'll call you when I get there." She hurried, not wanting to wait around another second for Lark to ask her those annoying questions. Didn't want to wait around and have someone listen to her. Didn't want to open an old scar. Didn't want to look back.

***

If Zim thought the outside of the Massive looked bad, when he saw what the inside looked like, he quickly changed his mind. Sections were blocked off, alarms were still going, Irkens still ran around in a steadily diffusing panic. Zim ignored the dead bodies, both the ones being carried away and the ones still waiting for disposal. It would seem to anyone watching him march that he shunned the dead walking by them but it was actually the complete opposite. He envied them their ability to escape the calamity and the horror of their fear. Nothing hurt anymore and there wasn't anything to be scared of anymore. Why the living didn't envy the dead more was still a basic mystery to Zim who left Gir behind to guard the ship while he wandered the Massive's depths.

_Why am I in here?_ He thought going through corridors and rooms, taking in the damage

and watching his peers attend to their duties both in the crisis and after. _I did what I needed to do, what my heart told me to do and then to top it off I actually come inside and make myself look at everything. Is my appetite for destruction so indiscriminate now it can't tell the difference between enemy carnage and my own?_ Of course nothing of what he saw made him glad Irk had its might challenged. Not anymore. The worst he saw were some of the injured lying in rooms, still yet to be attended and or found.

Passing a war room (the kind filled with coordination maps and battle plans) he saw a small Irken crawling across the threshold on his stomach. He was coughing up blood and spitting it nonchalantly out the corner of his mouth. Zim froze and stared at him. Impulse told him one thing and a deep curdled something else told him to do another. Impulse won out, as was natural, and he came to the injured Irken's side.

"Don't move," he told the small creature who quit his mortal torture of a drag. Coming closer, he noticed a long wet green trail of blood following him. Zim knelt at his side and gently made him turn over somewhat so he could see how bad it was. He almost vomited.

The poor thing's innards were extensively damaged. Some were even hanging out and dripping. A wave of nausea washed over Zim and he fought to remain detached from what he was looking at. Resting the poor guy's head in his lap, he gazed into the creature's unique dark green eyes. They kept fluttering open and then half-closed. He coughed again and tried to spit but couldn't. Slowly, he moved his tiny hand toward his stomach, reading something in Zim's face. Catching the movement, Zim seized his claw and held it, shaking his head. Try as hard as he did, he couldn't keep the sadness in his eyes from the young Irken's notice. He knew the truth.

The Irken sighed heavily and pointed to his head at a certain spot. In Irken culture, its meaning was clear. He was asking Zim to kill him. 

Shocked by his request, Zim fought to keep calm. Shakily he stood over his fellow Irken and touched his pak. It opened and he reached into it and pulled out a long snub nosed object. He leveled it at the officer's head and took careful aim. Without hesitating he pulled the trigger.

After it happened, Zim immediately turned around and slammed his fist against the wall. He shut his eyes and did it again and again, leaning his head against his arm. 

_I'm leaving. I am not going to stay here and do this to every Irken beyond help. I can't. I just can't. _

He recovered the best he could and compelled himself to look in the room the other had come from and found no one. The place was damaged almost to the point of no repair. But he knew with the kind of technology they had, this would all be back in order in no time. The whole ship would go back in consecution within twenty-four hours with the dead disposed of, the living back to work and everyone none the wiser from the nightmare that just happened. 

Moving on, Zim set his resolve on high and made his way back to his ship. Leaving. He was going to leave this place behind, go back to Earth and never think of Irk and its inhabitants again. He no longer thought the way they did. He could never think the way they did, able to clean up a mess thoroughly and shrug it off like a bad dream. The humans didn't do it on September 11, 2001 and neither would he.

_I'm not even an Irken anymore,_ he realized it in awe. _Everything I was programmed with, everything I was brainwashed into believing is . . . it's gone. I've broken away._ Completely. Cleanly. The strangest part about it was, he found he liked it. It gave him a sense of intoxication, this newfound existence.

Entering a large, hangar sized room, he was surprised to find it filled with hundreds of injured Irkens. Machines and medics were going from patient to patient, doing their best at administering care. It took time to see to each injury so many Irkens were left unattended, some moaning in pain while others lay in their beds staring all around them. 

Feeling oddly disconnected from all that was going on around him, Zim walked through the makeshift hospital room (which its presence dictated the normal medical wards were already filled up). He tried to keep from wincing and looking away from the expressions of anguish many wore and the wounds they sustained. Over and over he kept seeing the face of a young boy in every injured Irken's eyes. In his memory the words "It doesn't hurt, Zim" echoed in his ears.

Finally, he went off to the side and shut his eyes, covered his ears. Blocking out the voices of the sick and dying, shutting out the memories they were resurrecting within him.

"What's YOUR problem?" asked a female voice wrought with arrogance and a faint tinge of an accent. "Irkens suffering from brain injuries are on the other side of the room. Best luck to you to get them to pay you any mind though."

Zim looked toward the bed nearest him. A tallish female Irken with dark purple eyes reclined with her foot propped up on a red pillow with the symbol of the Irken Empire on it. Her antenna was long and curly and she had what humans would have called a beauty mark under one eye. She looked extremely pissed off, with her arms crossed over her chest and both eyes narrowed.

She kept talking. "I have been here for over three hours and no one has come to see me about my foot!" Raising her arms in frustration, she yelled, "A LITTLE HELP SOMETIME TODAY WOULD BE NICE!" Glaring at him. "I suppose YOU are of no help to me."

"Wh-What makes you say that?" He felt very cowed in her presence. Females always managed to have that affect on him. He wished he knew why.

She smiled in a misleading way. "I have watched you wander through here and stare at everyone as if they were clowns in a freak show. Surely your bewilderment should have clued me in first but I was probably giving you too much credit."

Zim bristled. "I was NOT looking at them like they were clown things in a freak show. I was merely horrified at how many people were hurt, that's all."

She crossed her arms again and became very acrimonious. Not that she hadn't started out way to begin with. "Well, while you are here, perhaps we can have a decent conversation. I have grown tired of listening to myself scream."

"Me too."

She gave him a wonderfully hateful look.

Zim laughed.

Suddenly her eyes popped wide open in surprise when he did that. "Oh no, tell me it is not what I think it is."

He quit laughing. "Think what?"

She sat up a bit more and squinted hard at him. "I think I have met you before." She opened one eye up. "Yes, I think I recognize you. You are someone I hate, I think."

Zim laughed again. She was very amusing, this one. And very familiar, he couldn't quite place her. Her name was at the tip of his tongue. Thanks to the shellshock of the past few hours, regular memories were sort of hard to get a hold of. "Someone you hate? I take it there's no one you like?"

She nodded her head. "Hmm. Yes." A sudden mixture of real shock tinged with the barest hint of delight took hold. She pointed at him. "Zim! You're Zim!"

Zim imitated her haughty composure and feigned indifference. "So what?" Then her name popped up in his head and he added, "I want my robot bee back, Tak."

Tak gave a hilarious start and dug her claws into her bed. "I don't have your . . . Do not throw me off track!" She glared at her old enemy. "So you _are_ alive."

He was stiff. "So I am."

Tak indicated generally all around. "And back here I see."

"As are you." Zim grinned. "Still seeking revenge?"

Tak shifted her foot, trying to make herself comfortable. A second of pain flickered across her face and she cringed. "Not presently. I thought you were dead so naturally what cause would I have to pursue you? To chase a dead person is not in my job description."

"Well, Earth would have been free."

Tak shook her head. "It is as I told you. I am a better invader than you could ever be. Why waste my time on such a filthy ball of doom, as you so eloquently like to put it? No. I have far better aims."

"Like what?" Zim asked, pretending not to care when he really did. "One planet is as good as another."

"That's what YOU think." Tak smiled. "Had I my strength I would . . ."

"Kick my ass, yes, yes." Zim waved it off. "Your temper amuses me but I have better things to do."

It set her off, just like he predicted. "YOU FOOL! Think you I still don't remember what you did to me over eighty years ago?! Well, I do! I missed my shot at becoming an Invader because of YOU!" She made a fist and shook it at him. "You WILL pay for that, Zim! Once my foot gets better, I will finish what I started!"

"Too late." Zim sat down uninvited at the foot of her bed. It amazed him how linear some people really were in their lives. "You've no idea what I've been through and believe me, it's punished me in more ways than you could ever dream of." He looked at her and smiled gently. "You never got any of my messages did you?"

Taken aback by his demeanor, Tak became confused. "Messages? What . . . Oh, you mean those pathetic pleas? Yes, I got them."

"How come you didn't answer then?"

Tak glared at him. "Why do you think?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not you."

Tak frowned, put off by the attitude of the formerly mad and ignorant creature of insanity. In the back of her mind, she was wondering what could have changed this Irken so radically he would sit like that and wear such a completely lifeless expression. Not much could do that to an Irken. Personalities within the Irken race were usually rock solid and any dramatic changes were rare and far between.

Zim sensed her confusion and patted her good leg. "It's good to see you again, Tak."

Her mouth fell open. This came to her completely unexpected.

He stood up and finally told her what he'd been dying to tell her for years. "I'm sorry for what I did to you and I'm sorrier for your misery. I wish I could make it up to you somehow but I don't think anything I could do could be enough." He lowered his head a little. "Good-bye." He moved to go.

Tak reached out to him. "Wait! Zim!"

He waited.

Tak scooted to the edge of the bed, got down on one foot and used the end of it to balance. Her other hand went and grabbed his arm. There was no hostility in her face, no hate, no fixated angst. "Do you mean that?"

"Mean what?"

"All those things you said. Are you really sorry?"

He nodded. "I am."

Tak went silent, just staring at him. It was a kind of awe he saw in her face, as if she had discovered a rare jewel and her eyes had fallen upon it for the first time. "You're not lying." Then suddenly she tightened her grip on his arm. There was a look in her eyes only Zim was able to interpret; the same desperation he'd seen in another female being. In that he realized Tak was just like him. She felt the same things he did, the same things none of the other Irkens did. The same things that ousted them as inconnu, strays from the norm, outcasts. She was recognizing that and seeing an end to her loneliness inside her glass world when she saw what she was looking for in him for the first time in centuries. It was that she had latched on to. 

If things were different, he would have accepted it and pursued it. But things were not different. There was a message inside of a small computer that made all of what Tak desired impossible for him to reciprocate.

"We can't go down that road," he told her quietly. "And don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about."

Tak let go and sat down. "You're the only one though," she whispered so faintly he hardly heard her. "You're the only one who . . . is like that too." Fiercely she looked up, the old resentment seeping back. "Why not?"

Zim sighed. "It's complicated." Very complicated.

Tak made a fist and smacked it into her palm silently. Did it twice. Suddenly she looked at him. "If things ever . . .get uncomplicated . . ."

Zim had to smile. She understood, even as she frantically clung on to the inner realization in herself. It was her form of forgiveness. In hatred there was a tiny part that was screaming to get out and it finally did. Not caring what she thought or what anyone else would think, he hugged her and left.

Tak watched after him. A lot of things passed through her mind then, although what they were no one would ever really know. She lay down after a few minutes and resumed waiting for the medic.


	13. Temptation and Second Chances

***

In the ensuing period after the abrupt, flagitious attack on the Massive, the Tallest were probably the most stressed out of all the Irkens. Not nearly as stressed out as the ones doing all the work but they were certainly chewing over all the horrible reports coming in every three seconds. Fire here, fire there, this many dead here, this many dead there. This many ships destroyed, this many people hurt. Where access to certain sectors was cut off, what sectors were still functioning. The reports just kept flowing. Finally Red had to shut off about half the communication screens just to keep whatever sanity he and Purple had left.

"Can you believe this?" he spoke in a hushed voice, staring at one screen that showed the inside of a very vital sector. It was in complete annihilation. There were Irkens in what looked like haz mat suits spraying liquid over blue and green colored fires bursting from ruptured tanks.  

Purple sat slouched down in a chair, his fingers folded together before him. His light had gone out. "No."

Red finally forced himself to tear his eyes from the screen. "We're going to be expected to give a speech on the attack. We're going to have to give people a reason this happened."

Purple nodded. He didn't speak.

Red crossed the room and collapsed on the chair beside his co-ruler's. He rubbed at his sinuses. "I can't think of anything." His shoulders slumped. "I really think we're stuck for an excuse this time."

Purple remained silent for a long time. Finally he brought something to his friend's attention. "They stopped attacking when they could have wiped us out. In another few minutes the ship's core would have detonated, causing a thermonuclear explosion. The attack was obviously focused on making that happen."

Red glanced at him. "Yet it didn't."

"Why do you think?"

"Maybe that was the whole point." Red scratched his chin, a frown crossing his face. "But why do that? Why waste that kind of power if you're not going to destroy your enemies with it? What would be the use of just scaring us?"

Purple shrugged. "Maybe they were compromised."

"Compromised by what?" Red interjected sarcastically. "We weren't exactly at our best out there so it couldn't have been anything WE did."

Purple bit down and thought about it more seriously. "It couldn't have been a scare tactic. That I'm sure of." He got up and pointed to a monitor. "Look at this." Pressing a button, he switched screens. "This is what the radar looked like BEFORE the attack ended." The screen had a large blip on it with several smaller blips. "And this," he switched it again, "this is what it looked AFTER." The screen had all the tiny blips but . . .

"The Resisty mother ship is gone." Red gasped. "That flash of light we saw! It exploded!" Delight and confusion filled him. "Someone saved us."

Purple cast doubt. "Perhaps they messed up. That weapon they were firing at us was stolen from Vort scientists, which means they stole it from US."

"But it wasn't the kind of weapon that caused the ship that was using it to explode," Red disagreed. "The Vort may be lousy at defending themselves but they're good at making reliable weaponry. No, I think someone saved us."

Purple shut the monitor off. "If true, then who? Who could have been smart enough to sneak up on the Resisty without being noticed?"

"I wish I knew." Flummoxed, Red rubbed the back of his neck; he felt worn out and longed to be unconscious for a little while. "Irk doesn't have many allies." He sounded subdued when he admitted this. "We're not exactly the most popular race in the universe."

Purple shrugged, gesturing it off with one hand. "Feh. Inferior beings are always jealous of superior might. Like I always say, it's better to join the ranks of your oppressors than be conquered by them."

"You NEVER say that."

Purple made a face. "I aim to."

The door at the end of the Tallest personal chamber opened and a high-collared technician with dark blue eyes poked his head in. "My Tallest?"

They turned to him, the usual annoyed boredom fully presenting itself. "What is it?"

"There is someone here to see you."

Purple rolled his eyes. "EVERYONE wants to see us. It's a given!"

Red answered. "Tell him he'll have to wait. We're busy right now."

"Okay." The technician disappeared and then poked his head back in a few seconds later. He started to sweat. "He, uh, he insists on speaking with you."

Purple shrugged with his hands when Red looked to him in exasperation. "Hey, telling the public that we're always here with an open ear was YOUR idea. I want no part of this."

Red scrowled and made two fists at his sides. "Fine. Let him in." He muttered to Purple, "You'll pay for this."

Purple only grinned and drank his soda. The grin fell from his face when their guest stepped into their chamber. Collectively both him and Red exhaled: "Zim?!"

Defiant as always, Zim stood to attention. Years of military training to stand up straight and look good were one of the few things managing to hang on to this former soldier. That and the trademark arrogance.

"I knew it. What do you want now?" Red asked him, not bothering to hide his contempt for the non-invader. "Wasn't an apology and medical treatment good enough for you?"

"Yeah!" Purple agreed around a mouthful of something better left unidentified. "Really!"

A faint frown wrinkled Zim's brow. Other than that, his expression remained neutral. "Perhaps I made a mistake," he said after a sustained pause. "True, the decision was all mine. I could've not done it, then again, what kind of an Irken would I have been if I just let the enemy destroy my home?"

Red caught the implication a lot faster than Purple did and his mouth dropped straight through clear to his feet. He tried to get a word out edgewise and wound up simply and quite pathetically pointing at Zim.

Zim shook his head. "I can see from the dumbfounded expressions on your superior and resplendent faces you've already guessed." He made a cutthroat gesture. "I expect no thanks or credit. Praise and reward who you will or not, it makes no difference to me." Zim's figure squared in barely contained rage and he started to stalk out the door.

Purple stood and reached out. "Wait!"

Zim stopped, back still to his leaders.

Helplessly he exchanged a look of defeat with Red. "Zim, come back."

Zim shook his head and silently approached his leaders. For the first time the Tallest saw the anguish in him, surprised they hadn't seen it before. It would have made them cry, hadn't their lives of pampering and self-centeredness dissuaded them from any articulation of sympathy. But they did feel one thing and it horrified and shamed them at the same time. They exchanged a silent agreement. It was the best thing to do and more rightly it was something they realized they should've done from the beginning. It would end their problems with this one particular Irken who had been their most secret source of embarrassment and shame.

Red nominated himself for the event. He came close to Zim and spoke guardedly. "All right, let's end this."

Zim's narrowed eyes widened in disarmed shock. He caught himself and eyed his leaders warily. "What is this?"

Purple eventually came in. "Zim, you're excused. Your record is cleared. Look, I'll clear it in front of you." He went to a computer and pulled up Zim's file. No one had touched it in years so the word BANISHED was still superimposed over Zim's image. One touch on the screen and the word vanished. He turned back to him. "See? I even undeclared you dead."

"As an added bonus," Red supplemented. "You've been given full work status. Whatever profession you want, is yours."

Zim looked from one leader to another. "Why are you doing this?"

Both leaders exchanged looks.

"Look," Purple began. "We'll never be on good terms. Can we agree on that?"

No answer.

"So," Red said with a little sigh punctuating the word. "The Empire doors are open to you. If you ever need it for any unthinkable reason, if you've got nowhere else to go or are just plain desperate, it's here for your use. Okay?"

"It's the least we can do. You saved Irk, Zim," Purple admitted reluctantly. "We had to give you something."

Zim didn't say anything for a long time. Gradually he looked from one leader to the other. Then he simply turned around and started to head out the door. Completely confused, Red and Purple called out to him.

"Zim!" Red put himself between the door and the former invader. "Look, we just gave you back your life! Don't you have ANYTHING to say?"

The slighter shorter individual set his jaw and stared fixedly at him and then turned to Purple and back again. "You two are incredible." There was no gladness. "Did you hear not one word I said? I want NOTHING."

"If you wanted nothing," Purple said accusingly. "Then why did you come up here and tell us you saved the Empire? Someone who doesn't seek recognition for that doesn't come and tell anyone about it."

"Besides," Red said in a very dark and strict tone. "We would have had to do this anyway." He jabbed Zim in the chest. "If anything happens to Purple or me, you HAVE to come back here."

"Why?" Zim asked in a vicious whisper.

Purple growled. "Have you measured yourself recently? Zim, after us, you're the tallest Irken in the Empire."

The Irken's face grew pale. "I'm . . . you mean . . ."

"Yes."

Amazing. Even after making what he was clear before them the last time he stood, they still didn't seem to understand. Zim backed toward the door and pointed at them. "NEVER! I am Zim and Zim's life is his own!" He started to yell. "WHY DON'T YOU HOLD ELECTIONS OR UTILIZE A DEMOCRACY!?" In a carefully contained voice wrought of rage, he continued. "I will not be manipulated like this. Do what you will but leave me out of it. "

"But maybe you could change that," Red said cautiously, actually starting to feel a little afraid of the mix of pain and hatred in Zim. "Ever crossed your mind while you were so brutally rejecting us?"

"And saving us!" Purple added with false cheer.

Zim appeared thrown although it didn't shake his conviction. Finally without waiting for dismissal, he left the chamber.

The Tallest watched the door swing closed as they watched yet again as Zim left them behind.

"Thank you, Zim," Red said softly. "I'm sorry." Without looking at him, he spoke quietly to his co-ruler. "A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts."* 

Purple nodded sadly, went to the computer and closed the file.

***

The sea of stars was a welcome sight to him. Soon as they were out of Irk's solar system, Zim set the course and let the cruiser take on automatic pilot. Unless some unseen danger came directly in their path, they could feasibly sail the rest of the way to the Milky Way on it.

Gir spent time alternately singing and sleeping. Sometimes he started conversation about the tiny things that went through his mind or outside of it. Other times he played with the toys he brought with him in the back. Inexplicably he'd come up front where Zim sat thinking (or comatose) and give him a hug once every while.

Zim thought about a lot of things. It was all there was to do really. He thought about the Tallest and his record being cleared. He thought about his part in the battle. He thought about his future in the Irken Empire - a future he once thought forever lost to him. Tallest Zim. God, the whole concept. He sat back and propped both feet up on the dashboard and crossed his ankles. _I could never lead the Empire_, he thought. _The way it runs itself I can't abide by. The changes I want to make would destroy our species. Too soon and too fast. The Control Brains wouldn't be able to handle it. I don't think they'd allow it anyway. Why would they? The Empire system may be brutal, unfair and too domineering but the thing is it works. It sucks but it works - and no one complains about it. Except for the mistakes. Mistakes like me. Like Tak._

It really had been good to see her again. He felt her longing keenly and something told him they'd meet again - and it would be under better circumstances. She reminded him of better days, past victories, the chase of the mission that had been all too real to him. Battles won and lost to fight another day. She even reminded him of the short-lived alliance he made with Dib. He never liked to say it but for the week Tak had almost taken his mission, he'd needed an ally badly. Someone who could help him save the earth, who would do it despite contrary reasons for why. When it came to saving that planet from outside invaders, he realized, the best thing you could have on your side was Dib.

Thinking about his dead enemy returned him to the revelation he'd made to himself before. The power he held if he chose to wield it, the power he never knew he possessed for so many long, painful years. The power that, had he used it sooner, would have prevented so many other things from happening.

It wasn't a question of _if_ he could use it. It was a question of if he _should_ use it. _Do I have that kind of right? What if using it only made things even worse than they are now? What if it didn't matter what I did, it would still happen? Can I make that kind of decision? Should I really have that kind of control over life?_

If he used it, then there were things that would not happen. Good things. One good thing that would never happen hadn't the one bad thing that happened.

_Can I make that kind of sacrifice? Neither of us would ever know because it would have never happened. There's nothing to miss. _

_It could still happen . . . couldn't it?_

_No_, he reasoned flatly. _There would be someone between us then, someone who would do everything and anything in his power to protect what was closest to his heart. If he wasn't there, it would happen. If not, there would be no chance._

"It either him or me," Zim said aloud to Gir when the robot came back beside him. "Gir, can I ask you something?"

Gir smiled. "Kay."

"What did you think of Dib?"

Gir thought a moment. "He was nice."

He'd given that reply once before. Zim wanted to know why now. "Why? Why did you think he was nice?"

The robot thought again. "I don't know. He loved his planet." Gir shrugged. "He liked pizza. He liked Gaz. I like pizza and I like Gaz." He squealed like a monkey. "Whee-hoo!"

"Gir! Focus!" Zim shouted, caught himself and calmed down. No need to get hysterical now. "Would you like to see him again?"

Gir jumped up. "Kay!" He looked around and his face became sad. "But he's dead. No more big head boy."

Maybe he's more in touch with reality than I thought. "Yes. He is." Zim sat back. "Go play."

Gir grinned and disappeared in the back again.

_I can't make this kind of decision,_ he thought. _I need to talk to someone else about it. I'll ask her when we get back to Earth. It's the only thing I can think to do about it right now._

***

_Zim held Dib against the wall. They were in his house in Zim's living room. Dib struggled to get free but his feet weren't touching the floor. Zim held him by his collar, twisting the fabric around his claws to constrict the human's movements. Dib stared holes of hate into Zim's impassive red eyes._

_"You'll never get away with it!" Dib gasped with some effort. "I'll never give up, Zim! NEVER."_

_Zim tightened his grip and shoved him a little harder. "Home invasion is against the law, earth boy. Perhaps I should call your police and have them remove you from the premises. Whatever you think I will 'get away' with, I will get away with that." He almost pressed his face against the boy's. "As for your giving up, I don't expect you too."_

_Dib said nothing. He just kept struggling._

_Zim laughed. "It's no use. I'm a lot stronger than you are."_

_"Physically maybe," Dib growled. "But I don't think you are mentally."_

_Zim frowned a little. "What makes you say that?"_

_The human gave him a nasty grin. "Let's just say I see what you're like when you're cornered."_

_"What am I like?"_

_Seeming to realize something, Dib kept the disturbing grin on his face. "You're scared of me."_

_Taken aback, Zim only widened his eyes._

_Seizing on his silence, he went on. "Underneath every face of bravado there's a coward waiting to come out."_

_Zim transferred his claws to Dib's throat. He had the distinct satisfaction of seeing the startled fear flicker across the human's face. Panic took its place when the alien's claws started to squeeze._

_"No!" he really started to freak out. "No . . ." he mewled clutching at Zim's wrists trying to remove them. Zim threw him to the floor and sat on top of him, pushing his head against the carpet. His next request was a strangled gasp. "Please . . . please don't kill me."_

_Zim smiled evilly. It felt so good to be in this position. He had the power now, he had it. A little bit more and Dib would die under his bare hands. No robots. No weapons of any kind. His bare hands. So easy . . . humans were so easy to kill . . ._

_Zim squeezed even more, watching Dib's eyes bulge. He watched his grasping hands slowly disengage themselves from Zim's wrists. He watched the light in his enemy's eyes start to fade._

_One more squeeze and he'd be dead. One more minute. It would be over._

_Then it hit him suddenly. No. It can't be over. This is way too easy. _

_Zim released Dib and got off him. He stood over the human as he coughed, gagged and gingerly touched his bruised larynx. Dib sat up and coughed deeply several times, sucking in oxygen. _

_"Get out."_

_Dib got to his feet and swayed some. Rubbing his throat, he stared incredulously at Zim, unable to speak yet._

_Zim went to the door and opened it, pointing outside to make sure Dib understood what he meant. "Leave. Now."_

_Dib walked slowly to the door and paused. He looked at Zim in another display of disbelief. Then suddenly he smiled. Not his usual evil smile but the kind of smile a person usually made when he's discovered something he always suspected he wanted to be true._

_Zim saw it too and it enraged him. "GET OUT!!"_

_Dib did and without a word._

_Zim slammed the door shut and punched himself in the head. "It can't possibly be true."_

_It was._

_***_

In other parts of the galaxy, there are always more dilemmas going on. Some, like with Irk, were huge beyond scale and life changing for the people involved. Others like with Gazbringing Johnny home, weren't beyond scale but they were life changing just the same.

She couldn't believe she let it happen. Not even the one who was drunk and she still let it happen. Her only hope was that he wouldn't remember. 

How in the world had it happened? She had helped him out of the car, up the stairs and into his apartment. Where she meant to dump him on the couch and call Lark to come get her. However, for some strange reason, that hadn't gone over. Okay, the couch part went smoothly but then Johnny did something he wasn't supposed to do. He woke up. Then he hooked her wrist when she started to walk away and made her sit next to him.

"Johnny," Gaz told him firmly. "I need to go."

He sat up. Okay, this wasn't good, his eyes were clearer. Johnny's drunken incoherency and hangovers were brief and few between. It also was a clear indication he hadn't had as much as she thought he did.

His response was to grab her, hold her against him and kiss her. She pushed away, deciding a smack was too good for him. "Cut it out!" He went for her neck. "Johnny, please . . ." Oh no, he found the zipper to her jacket. "Johnny . . ." her protests grew weaker as he began doing other things. When he started kissing her again, she did it back.

Then suddenly it was like she was standing outside her body, watching herself. What are you doing?! she heard herself screaming. Get out of here! You're only making things worse!

But Gaz knew her own body. Her mind hated Johnny, loathed, despised, and feared him. But her body . . . her body wanted him, lusted for him, possessed him. She had promised herself never to let her body control her. It worked pretty well for a while there. What was happening to change that?

Something saved her from making a complete mistake. Memory.

_He lay beneath her, struggling and complying with her demands. He kept trying to speak but her mouth silenced him long enough for her to get that uniform off him. Her skin touching his made her mind go even more. Her own disappeared when he tugged on her clothes as he started to give in her. He even flipped her over and took control of her and she found herself helpless and in pain. And yet not. The back of her mind screamed how wrong this was, how depraved and ungodly it was. How if nature meant for it to happen, they'd be the same. But they weren't the same, they couldn't be the same. And it was happening anyway. She didn't even like it. It felt so good and she didn't like it. She was betraying so much. Her brother's memory. Her own values. Her own society where a book would scream for her to die because of this. She wanted to stop but their bodies refused and it kept going on and on. It would stop. It would stop. But the damage would already be done._

And doing the same with Johnny was just as wrong, depraved and ungodly. It didn't matter that they were the same species because of one thing.

She didn't love him.

Before her mind went completely, she broke off the kiss and stood up, straightening her messed up clothes and mussed hair. Silently she left him there and pulled out her cell phone, walking out of the apartment as she did.

"Hi, Lark," she greeted her friend, zipping up her coat as she went down the stairs. "Johnny's home and I'm going to wait in the lobby."

"So you're not staying?" Lark almost sounded disappointed. "Man," she whistled. "Girl, you are strong."

"Well, I'm not you."

"Sure not. God." Her roommate sighed in admirance. "You've got the right stuff when it comes to ex-boyfriends. Hats off."

"Yeah," Gaz said and bid Lark farewell. She hung up and murmured, "Hats off." When she got to the lobby, she stood by the door and looked outside. Beyond the buildings. Beyond the sky.

Twenty minutes later, Lark's familiar blue Sierra pulled up to the curb. Gladdened, Gaz got in and smiled at her. She couldn't help but be internally proud of herself at shaking off a lusty temptation. It would have gone nowhere and done nothing. Nowhere and nothing good, that is. Johnny would have been in heaven. She would have been in hell.

_Going to hell is not what I need right now, _she thought forcing the smile to fall. _What I need is to accept that money, move out of this state and turn over a new leaf. I'll be getting a career and be making something of myself. Maybe I'll finally meet a nice man who's NOT a convict, NOT insane and NOT drunk. If I get lucky, maybe he won't have any emotional problems either._

Lark and Gaz put down neutral ground by talking about the concert. They discussed what sets they liked, what silly things the band did between songs, what hand gestures they used. Lark was convinced the bandleader had looked at her and Gaz disagreed by saying unless his eyes were telescopes, he could not have seen her.

Finally, they fell silent. It was time to tell her.

"Lark."

"Hmm?"

Deep breath. "I got the scholarship."

Lark almost stood on the brakes. "You WHAT?!" Thank everything that walked and breathed they were at a Stop sign. "Seriously?! You got the freakin' grant?!"

"Yes."

Pause. "You're not taking it are you?"

Gaz waited, thinking. Then she took the plunge. "I am."

Her friend slowly eased back into traffic. "Why? I thought you could use that money to continue your education here. You even said so yourself when you were applying for it."

"I did. I've changed my mind. I think I'm going to transfer to their college. It'd be easier and I wouldn't have to take half my courses online." Gaz felt it all flow smoothly out of her. "I've been dying to get out of this state for years. Here's the best reason."

Lark didn't say anything for a long while. Not until she pulled into the college dorm parking area. Turning off the engine, she simply sat there. Gaz did too.

"Why?"

"Huh?"

Lark looked up. "What is it about this state that you hate? Is it me? Is it the college? What?"

Gaz tugged at her gloves' fingertips. "It's . . . a lot of things." She gathered her thoughts. 

"Your brother's death?" Lark was quick.

Gaz nodded.

Her friend didn't say anything for a while. Finally she reached over and patted her hand. "Do whatever you feel is right. I'll miss you." Then she got out of the car and started back toward the dorm. Gaz sat there for a minute longer, thinking.

When Gaz got out, she didn't follow Lark back to the dorm. Instead she walked three rows over, found her car and got in. She really didn't know where she was going or what she intended to do when she got there. All she knew was it wasn't in the city.

She drove to a cul-de-sac and parked at the end of the street. Taking a deep breath, she got out and started walking. Pretending she was nine again on her way home from skool, she went along the sidewalk. Eventually she came to the intersection and stood on the edge of the curb. Standing there, she looked at the telephone pole. In her mind it was bent in half with a red car sticking to it. When she looked at the ground, windshield glass scattered around it in a sea of diamonds. Looking up, her hand went to her mouth.

There she was, nine years old, sitting in the middle of the street. Sitting in the sea of glass. Her tiny hands were reaching out to someone, calling. When Gaz looked she saw her brother, the last time she saw him, lying sprawled with a pool of blood under his head. His head was turned toward his sister and his hand moved in her direction. His mouth moved, saying her name without sound. 

Then they were gone. Gaz turned her back to the street, soaking her tears into her woolen gloves. Quietly she cried. _I did it. I came back here and I did it. I came back._

When she stopped and opened her eyes again, she gasped.

There he was. He was dead but he was here. Right there. Close enough to touch. It was like he'd been when he was alive except for a glowing halo surrounding his whole form.

Her heart pounded and she rubbed her eyes, expecting him to vanish. He didn't. Her knees were shaking as she knelt to approximate his height. Gaz's hand trembled when she reached out to touch him. 

He smiled and reached out to her too. Their hands touched.

"Are you real?" she asked.

"As real as you are." The sound of his voice brought fresh tears to her. "You're not seeing things."

Gaz held her breath. "You're a ghost."

He chuckled! "I told you they were real." He gazed at her again. "You're beautiful. I always knew you'd be."

Gaz let her tears run. "Oh Dib . . . are you really here? You're not in my head talking to me like with Zim?"

"I'm not. Whatever Zim says I am, he wants me to be so I am. But to you . . ." His glasses glinted as he tilted his head at her. "You want me here."      

"I do. Oh God I do." Gaz wondered at something and made as if to poke him in the eye. The familiar irritation came out on his face and he leaned back.

"What are you doing?"

Gaz stopped. "I-I have to touch you. I'm sorry, I just can't really believe you're here."

Dib came closer and touched his sister's cheek. Gaz gasped. She could feel him. A light, cool pressure against her skin. He drew back and smiled again at the wonder in her eyes.

"How come you're here now, Dib?" she whispered. "Are you . . . do you haunt around here or something?"

"Haunt?" A wry grin escaped him. "No."

"Then I don't . . ." Gaz put two index fingers to the sides of her temple, trying to figure it out. Her mind didn't care anymore about how it was possible he was here, it now cared about why he was here. "Don't you go somewhere?"

He gave her another mysterious smile. "Yes."

"Did YOU go anywhere?"

"I did."

"Where?"

Dib's only answer was to give her a playful tap on her chin. "I can't tell you that."

Begrudgedly, Gaz nodded. Of course. Whatever it was after death, the living weren't supposed to know. "All right." She folded her fingers together and raised her amber eyes to his own twin set. "Why are you here now?"

"To make you live."

"Make me . . . live?" Gaz asked searchingly. "I don't understand."

Dib stepped right up close to her and touched her hands with his own smaller ones. She could feel the coolness of his touch through the wool. "I'm dead, Gaz," he gently continued even as she bowed her head down.

She shook her head, not looking up.

"It's been hard. I know it's been hard for you."

At that, she looked up. "I wish . . . I wish it could be different." She shut her eyes again and closed her hands around his small ones. "Oh God, Dib, could it be?" She opened them again, seized with a sudden, fierce hope. "Please."

But Dib only smiled at her. It seemed to say things to her that filled her heart with the tiniest bit of hope.

Still, even with this hope, Gaz sighed, feeling torn. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"For what?"

She took a shaky breath. "I was a horrible sister to you. You must have hated me so much."

The spirit of her brother shook his head, the smile remaining on his face. "I did . . ."

Gaz looked destroyed.

He continued. "But only as a brother hates a sister."

A tentative grin started on his sister's face. "I love you."

Dib smiled again and let her hands go. Then he was gone.

Gaz stayed where she was, letting the last of her tears come. Minutes later she was up and walking back to her car.

*Seneca


	14. Nothing Is Ever Easy

Disclaimer: The lyric Gir sings is from the opening of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" by Genesis (Phil Collins sings it). Why I picked the lyric is anyone's guess ;) and the lyric he sings after that is from "Who's Johnny?" by El DeBarge (hope I spelt that right) which was famously used in the comedy _Short Circuit_, a film about a robot who believes he is alive. 

***

6 Months Later . . . 

"No, no, no!" Gaz screamed into the phone at her secretary. She walked around the tiny kitchen, the plastic cord wrapping itself around her waist. "How many times do I HAVE to tell you this before I have to bust some heads?" She exhaled in frustration at the measly excuse that ensued. "No, not _your_ head." _Although that would be an emotionally satisfying experience. _She poked her head out of the kitchen, distracted by the television. When she realized the commercial break was STILL going, she returned to the conversation.

"Look, Marty," she said in a listen or die tone. "I'm not mad at you. My anger right now has NOTHING to do with you." Pause. "No, it's not because of . . . Hey, shut up, okay? That WASN'T my fault!" There was a longer pause and Gaz rolled her eyes heavenward. "Okay, it was my fault a little. But that's not the point here. What the point here is if I don't get that plan on my desk by Monday, Vampire Piggy Classic doesn't go to market, it doesn't make _any_ money because people aren't _buying_ it and as a result I have to go to MY boss and tell him why _I'm_ such a lousy employee." After another pause, a smile twitched across her face. "Thank you, Marty, that's sweet of you." The humility didn't last. Her expression hardened again. "Now send a memo to those people and tell them to get on the horse already . . . It's an expression, Marty. I was making a joke." Pause. "Okay, okay. I have to go. Night." She hung up.

She untangled herself and ran a hand through her short-cropped hair. This month she was trying out a new pageboy type look and somehow she wasn't sure if she liked it. It made her neck look better and it saved her much the chore of combing it. There were always merits to short hair. Thing was, you couldn't do much with it.

"Ugh. I feel like shit." She wandered over to the coffee machine and poured herself another cup. "Another hardass day, another long ass night in front of the idiot box's twin."

When something brushed around her ankles, Gaz almost spilled coffee all down her front. "Goddammit." She glared at the green-eyed animal twining himself around her ankles. "E.T. you're asking for it."

"Mew." He reached up and pawed at the hem of her dark purple robe. He wanted something.

"What?" He kept pawing. "You wanna go out? Honey, you can't go out. It's an apartment. I could let you out on the balcony but I'm not in the mood to go chasing after you on ledges tonight." Gaz remembered risking her life once trying to get the troublesome kitty inside and it wound up turning into an adventure that almost included plummeting to her death seven floors down. Plus it had been a wonderfully, lovely freezing, icy, cold night.

The cat simply batted at her hem again and meowed. "Do you want food?" E.T. kept circling her ankles and meowing. "Oh I get it. You want attention. Is that what you want?" Holding the steaming mug away from her body, she scooped the cat under her arm. Immediately the animal quit meowing and fixed his intelligent green eyes on her amber ones. The smug satisfaction in them showed plain to his owner who was really in charge in this co-ed relationship.

"You're lucky you're a cat," Gaz told him frankly reentering her living room and dumping him on top of the coffee table. "So very lucky." Even in saying so, she scratched him under the chin, much to the creature's delight. He started purring a mile a minute.

Gaz reflected on her conversation with her secretary. It wasn't unusual from any other time she spoke with the poor, overworked sap. Typical business problems, typical day. Between moving to another state, enrolling at a prestigious college, graduating from one such institute and then nabbing her dream job with GameSlave International. After working her way up through the ranks (no easy task to be assured but her childhood years of obsessing over a device with push buttons finally paid off) and becoming a boss in her own right. Of course, the power didn't go to her head. Not after what she saw what things were like in the real world.

"Stupid world." She kissed the cat on the nose. Her eyes returned to the TV screen. Suddenly it went to static, right in the middle of the part before Anthony Perkins killed Janet Leigh in the shower. Groaning in exasperation, Gaz got up and smacked the side of the TV. It did this a lot. _Serves me right for buying things from a yard sale._

"Oh well," she muttered turning the white snow off. "Might as well get on the computer. Put work off long enough." Visions of payroll stubs and stock prices danced through her head. In her vivid imagination they were monsters with dripping fangs advancing on a mental image of herself cringing in a corner, waving them off with the Vampire Piggy's sword.

E.T. meowed and hopped off the table. He trotted into the bedroom, likely where he would wind up sleeping on her pillow whereupon there would ensure a later dilemma between cat and human who had exclusive rights to the thing.

Grabbing up her laptop from under her makeshift desk beside the couch, Gaz languished on the couch and propped her feet up on the coffee table. Before getting into file paperwork, she checked her e-mail. 

YOU HAVE 12 NEW MESSAGES

"What else is new?" she mumbled scrolling down. Most of it was junk mail and offers from free porno sites (not that she ever visited any of them). There were three from Lark; mostly howdy dos, how things were up her side of the alley and more happy chirpings about her engagement to said fiancée. Yay for her, Gaz thought going to the next message. Yep, here we go, one from dear old dad. The usual _hi honey how are you sorry about not writing you know how work is I love you and hope you're happy doing whatever you're doing hope to see you again whenever you get around to it I love you again love dad_ letter. The last message caused her coronary systems to jump into her throat. 

It was from Zim.

Nervously she clicked on the message. Since she sent that e-mail last year she hadn't heard back from him. Now Gaz was not the sort who prayed to any higher being much less believed in one but she found herself starting to just a little bit. Crossing her fingers, she read on.

**Gaz –**

**It's been a long time. For me everything has happened so fast and in an Irken life, a year is barely a day. But I am no stranger to how long an entire year is to a human. For you it must seem like forever. I apologize for not replying to your message. I wanted to be sure you got this so I waited until I was close enough to the planet. I am currently in orbit around Earth. You should see the view, it is absolutely beautiful. I do not own the best vocabulary to describe it in the terms it fully deserves but I can tell you it makes me remember why I came back to it. I guess I should tell you what has happened to me.**

**I got myself fixed. I can see and hear a lot better than I did the first time I ever came here. Colors are brighter and have more depth to them and I can hear the change rattling around in Gir's head. He is watching me type this and hitting several keys. He wants me to type this inanity, forgive it:**

**Pigs are my friend.**

**I would have deleted it but he is watching me like a hawk. Very handy this earth slang. However I am going off topic. **

"King of tangents," Gaz murmured, the barest touch of warmth in her voice.

**While I was at the Massive, an opposition called the Resisty attacked us. They almost completely destroyed the Empire. I managed to get out of the way. To make a long story short, I placed an explosive on the enemy ship and destroyed them. I wouldn't have done it but I realized I had to do it. To let my people die despite the way they treated me would have been . . . . I cannot think of a proper word to describe it. In return, the Tallest cleared my record. Cleared my record, Gaz. You would maybe call it a clean slate? It means I can go back to the Empire any time I want and be a part of it if I wished to. I may even have to one day. But I will not. I am sorry, I cannot serve the interests of a civilization whose ways I cannot and will not abide by. I am no longer a true Irken. Years ago this would have shamed me. However it does not bother me so much. I guess that is one way to grow, huh?**

**While on the Massive I met some people I have not seen in years. I ran into Invader Skoodge – the only friend I can remember way back from my days at the Academy. Short, squat fellow. Not too smart but friendly enough. After the attack, I went through an infirmary and guess who I ran into. Tak. Remember her? Sucked out earth's magma cause she wanted to fill it with snacks. Anyway, we got to talking after the initial shock wore off. I still don't quite get how it happened but once I admitted my transgressions, she forgave me. She also indicated a direction she'd like to go in concerning both of our lives but I had to refuse it.**

**I will be making planet fall in the next 24 hours. I know this sounds lazy of me but can you meet me? I will be right where I used to live. Contrary to what you believe, Gaz, I could not find you. I scanned your databases but you are not listed in any directories. I know some humans do that. I guess you are one of them. That is not such a bad thing. **

**One last thing. There is something we must discuss. I will tell you more when we meet.**

**-Zim**

Gaz checked her watch. Crap, that gave her until the evening of the next day. It would have to, she had to go to work. That in it of itself was no guarantee. Often times she had to stay afterward and attend to paperwork or catch up on the things that had been piling up all week. As an added bonus, she lived about sixty miles away. _So many things . . ._ She felt frustration well up until it became almost unbearable.

_Tonight. I'll go tonight. Right now, I'll leave. I can say it's a family emergency_. She smiled to herself. "The advantages of superiority never cease."

E.T. padded into the room and hopped onto the coffee table, deciding he wanted attention. Gaz kissed him on top of his furry head. Impulsively she picked up the animal and gave him a squeeze, waiting for the mrowr of protest before setting him down again.

***

Half a Day Later . . . . . . . . . . . 

When Zim saw Earth, he felt something inside of him give. It wasn't like any kind of feeling he'd ever experienced before. He wanted to call it euphoria but he was afraid to give it a name. It filled him with a tingly kind of feeling that made his pulse race and little sparks to dance all over his brain synapses. Like an inner radio was playing his favorite song, the one he'd forgotten how the words went but the melody remained imprinted into his very being. He wanted to sing this song so badly he felt like exploding.

Gir simply decided to sing the first thing that came to mind. " _' I'm comin' down, comin' down like a monkey! And it's all right!'_ " Promptly he attached himself to Zim's head and went off on a series of ya-hoos, cheers and other general sounds of merriment. "_'Who's Johnny, she says, and smiled in her special way!'_ "

Zim let Gir go crazy with glee. Why not? He felt the same things his SIR was feeling. He wished he could hop all over the place and sing assorted lyrics from old eighties tunes but he had a ship to land. _Ah, duty prevails._

"Hold on to something Gir," he intoned setting the coordinates. "We're going in."

"Yay!" Gir hooted loudly and held onto Zim's head. "WE'RE GONNA GO SPLAT!"

Zim plucked him off and threw him in his seat. "You're _questioning_ my unquestionably _bad_ piloting techniques?!" Pause. "Good eye," he added approvingly.

"You a bad pilot. You soooooo bad!" Gir grinned mindlessly. No, wait, he didn't have a mind to begin with.

Zim pretended to give his bot a noogie. His computer beeped its new message sound. Blinking, Zim gave a surprised start. He hadn't expected to get a reply so quickly! As the ship began its free fall toward the northern hemisphere, Zim read Gaz's message.

**Zim -**

**I'm there. Can't wait to see you.**

**- Gaz**

He closed the file and smiled. He didn't stop smiling for a long time.

***

Gaz sat on the hood of her car, lying across the windshield, her legs one over the other. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck and she constantly twitched around in her Levi's cut offs. It was the hottest night she could remember and she was glad she could finally dress down. It seemed all she was wearing anymore were boring blah business suits fit to make people throw up on them just to make them more interesting. Constantly she tried to think of creative ways to model a more sophisticated look but the only result of her own personal style altering was a call from the higher ups to dress more appropriately so the copy boys would quit staring at her. What were the words that guy had used? "Not conducive to a productive work environment."

She bit her bottom lip, remembering how she'd had to do that last time and ran into a bathroom to laugh it off. 

Sigh. Gaz flicked out her wrist and hit a button on her night watch. Then she looked over again at the empty alley she'd parked in front of, the same empty alley Zim's house had once stood all those years ago. Her stomach was churning with worry. Hope nothing's happened to him, she thought biting her thumbnail. The second her mind touched on that a flurry of what if scenarios came flying from all the directions. It was almost enough to make her go wild with anxiety on his account.

Bored she reached into her car's open window and grabbed something off the seat. Sitting comfortably, Gaz turned on her GameSlave. It was a new model - hadn't even been released on market yet. One of her jobs was to make sure these newfangled contraptions worked.

She became so absorbed into her game, she almost didn't notice the huge Voot Cruiser fly in overhead with loud WHOOSH! that left a hurricane of a wake behind it. Shielding her eyes, Gaz put down the game and scooted down to the bumper of the car. Fidgeting like a little kid, she waited for the dust to clear and for all the stirred up trash, leaves and debris to settle back to earth once again. Then she was up and going toward the ship. Her heart was pounding. Everything inside her fluttered around like a million butterflies. Crying and laughing fought each other for first emotional reaction. For the agonizing wait, a billion questions came through her. But most of all, really, she just wanted to see him.

Gir appeared first, naturally. Like a robot rocket with sugar for jet fuel, he flew out and tackled her in the chest. "Honey, I'm home!"

Hugging back, Gaz found a slight smile tug on her. Genuinely she was thrilled to see the pain in the butt brainless metal of bolts. Like she so often did with E.T. she pecked him between the optics. The bot flushed wildly and cheered. "Weeeeee-hoooooooo!" He ran on the ground around her in circles, little arms raised in victory. 

"I hope I get one too." Zim stood only a few feet away, his arms folded and a particularly smartass grin on his face. He wasn't wearing his disguise. One of his antenna was flicked rakishly to the side. He was wearing his Invader's uniform although this one was obviously newer and it fit him better.

Gaz only gave him a calm smile and turned her head to the side, feigning indifference. "Get one what?" She closed the distance and put one hand on her hip. She was immoderately pleased when she saw what Zim's eyes were doing. Between the time he last saw her and the time he left, Gaz had become a woman. Her black tank top emphasized this fact best. It had been a long time.

"Wow." It was the best he could come up with under these circumstances. He blinked to get himself out of the daze. "You changed."

Slyly she smiled wider. "So have you." More quietly she whispered, "Hi."

"Hi."

There was a long pause. The familiar air of tension and heat long extinguished for almost three years was slowly, quickly coming back to life. Neither expected its presence to return so strongly and swiftly. Every word they meant to say disappeared and suddenly no one knew what to say.

"So . . . " Zim attempted hesitantly. "I'm back." He immediately felt stupid.

He needn't have bothered. Gaz wasn't feeling particularly intelligent at the moment either. "I can see that."

It broke the ice. Both laughed nervously. She used this moment to give him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. It was all she meant to do.

Zim turned his head and caught her mouth. Pulling her close, he forced the kiss until she caught up with him. It started out chaste enough but when Gaz felt his arms go around her, she knew this kiss was supposed to mean something. She was no longer a desperate, lonely sixteen year old. So she could either kiss back and share in that which she brutally pushed away three years ago or destroy the only thing that ever made her happy.

Gaz slowly slipped her arms around his neck and pulled in. She had made her choice.

***

Hours later after the house rebuilt itself, shoved the laboratories underground and punched holes in the neighboring buildings, Gaz and Zim sat on the alien's living room

couch talking. The TV was on with a mesmerized Gir plopped in front of it. Gaz updated him of her living whereabouts, her career and assured him when he asked that whatever relationships she ever had in college were over and dead with. 

"What about your father?" Zim asked. "Do you talk anymore?"

Gaz shrugged. "He sends me a letter once a month." She spread her hands. "It's really better if he and I don't talk to each other." Suddenly she smiled. "Enough about me and my boring human life. Tell me about this battle." 

Zim told her everything. His confrontation (both of them) with the Tallest, his conversations with Skoodge and Tak, the Resisty almost destroying the Massive. He kind of grinned when he spoke of his leaders, became introspective when he mentioned old friends and enemies. Relating the tale of the attack, he did it slowly, methodically. When he mentioned the Irken he killed, he seemed to go out of it.

"He was bleeding all over the place," Zim said softly. "There was blood everywhere. He was so small . . . his hands were tiny and his eyes were this odd shade of dark blue. You don't see many Irkens with blue eyes." He put a hand over his eyes, shading them from her. "I saw him, Gaz. I saw him in all of them. I kept hearing his voice, telling me in all those people crying that it didn't hurt. It didn't hurt."

Gaz noticed he was becoming a little hysterical and touched his arm. "Zim, it's okay. You don't have to feel guilty. You did what you had to do." She moved closer. "There's no shame. Whatever you think of how you did when you went back home, you did only what your heart was telling you to do."

Zim brought his hand up and touched hers resting on his arm. "All it told me was to come back here. After going back to Irk, it made me see once and for all who I really am."

"And who are you?" she asked a little playfully.

The familiar evil smirk came back. "I am Zim."

"Of course. How silly of me."

He laughed at her deadpan delivery. For a little while they sat together companionably, one eye on the TV, one eye on each other. Sneaking her hand across the couch cushions, she touched his. He clasped it and held it tightly.

"Gaz."

"Hmm?"

Zim moved around until he was facing her. "Remember I told you something in the letter?"

She nodded. "Yeah. You said we needed to discuss something important." If it was about how they felt about each other, she had excellent news for him.

He took a deep breath and got up, still holding her hand. "It's in one of my labs."

_It?_ Gaz frowned, perplexed. "Your labs? What is?"

He nodded and gave a gentle encouraging tug. "It's-It's better to show you." 

*** 

"Wow!" Gaz's eyes took in all the high technology as the elevator brought them down. They bugged out into two amber orbs of delight. "I haven't been down here since I was a little girl." Thinking about what she just said, the woman shook her head. "Makes me feel old."

"Trust me," the alien brushed a bang out of her face. "You will never be old to me. By your age standards, I would already be dead."

There! That's the question she never asked him! Good time as any to ask it now. "How old are you Zim?"

"By what measure of time?"

"Huh?"

He reworded it. "Irkens age very slowly. Physically I'm over twenty earth years old. Chronologically, I'm well over two hundred. In the Irken Empire, it's considered quite over the hill." But he was grinning.

Gaz stared at him. "Man, you should really start thinking about dipping into your Social Security." He grabbed her around the middle, making her yelp with laughter. She slugged him in the arm. Taking no offense, he went back to business.

"Elevator continue down to the sub-basement level."

"Which one?" it replied. "Specify!"

The alien rolled his eyes and made crazy motions to Gaz. "Computer, there is only ONE sub-basement. That's why I said _the_ and not _one of_."

"Oh." The elevator continued. "I did not hear. You mumble."

"I DO NOT MUMBLE!!"

Gaz placed a placating hand on his shoulder. "Relax, it's a computer, Zim."

He gave her a Look. "I seem to recall some pretty heavy fits when YOUR computer didn't work." He stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth thoughtfully. "Now that I mention it, you were very upset when you ordered Squirt comics off that site and they didn't come in."

Gaz pinched him as the elevator descended into the depths. It got darker and it became difficult to discern anything other than tiny blinking lights from various machinery outside. "It's Squee! you dummy and they DID come in." Only Zim could make her act like she was a kid again. 

"Ow. That HURT." They couldn't see each other anymore. Except for Zim's eyes, they glowed in the dark.

  
"You ain't seen nothing yet."

"Well being that it's dark and . . ." Trailing off, her strange choice of friend growled suggestively. "You will so pay for this." He gave a start when he felt her lips brush against his. The elevator slid to a stop. Reluctantly he broke off the kiss to shout, "HEY, HOW ABOUT A LITTLE LIGHT IN HERE?!"

"Lights on!"

BAM! Light poured into the room in a rush of near blinding glare. Gaz shaded her eyes and wished for a pair of Ray Bans. "Maybe you ought to get a clap light instead."

Zim was too busy bemoaning his eyesight to hear her. "My superior eyes! The blindness! The pain! THE PAIN!"

The human woman sighed in exasperation and shouted. "Dim those damn lights!"

"Dimming lights!" They reduced until Gaz had to tell it to stop because obviously the system wasn't smart enough to know what light level sentient beings functioned at.

That done, she smiled at the Irken who stood there covering his eyes with both hands. 

"Hey, space boy, you're not going to melt."

Space boy? Zim peeked out and a slow, almost nostalgic smile came to him. "I haven't heard that one in a long time." Pause. "Stink-beast."

"How bout wormbaby?"

He laughed. "Or . . . um . . ." Zim shook his head. "You know, I never did make up a name for you."

They laughed.

Getting down to business, Zim crooked a finger at her. "Follow me. It's easy to get lost down here."

She solved the problem by taking his hand. 

He winked at her. "That works too." Gesturing with his free arm, he proudly led the way. "I, Zim, have my whole base completely memorized! There is not one room or lab I do not know how to get to!" he mugged heedlessly. "Of course," he amended after a minute. "Sometimes getting _into_ them is a whole other matter."

Gaz snickered. "So, where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"I hate surprises. Except at the movies. Those I like." 

Zim opened a door then stood to the side. He did an awkward half bow and gestured inside. 

Gaz raised an eyebrow at him.

He caught the message. "Hey, bear with me."

Gaz shrugged and entered first. She only had to walk ten steps into the room before her eyes bugged out again and her mouth dropped open. "Oh. My. God."

Zim fell in beside her, a sure, rather proud look on his face. "Yeah. Neat ain't it?"

"It's . . . " Gaz walked back and forth in front of it, checking it out from all sides. Finally she looked back at him. "If Kurt Russell walks out of that thing, you are in _serious_ trouble!"

Zim frowned. "I thought you liked Kurt Russell."

"That's my point."

"Oh." He didn't get it. Then a few seconds later he did. "Oooooh." 

She examined the thing high and low, personally not knowing what to make of it. It had a lot of monitors and controls. A dial with the month, day and year was in the chief display. 

In the center was a platform wedge that lead all the way up to a large ring shaped thing. Walking up the wedge, Gaz ran her hand along it, taking in the alien markings with mannered interest. Taking a few steps back, she took the long view and came to a conclusion.

"I give up. What is it?"

"A Temporal Time Replacement machine."

Gaz folded her arms. "Hunh." She cleared her throat and bit her tongue. "What's it do?"

She looked back at him.

Zim's crimson eyes half-closed. "It changes the past."

It sounded ominous. "How?" she asked, not at all seeing the implications. At least not yet. "You mean a time machine?"

"Sort of." Zim went behind part of it and picked up a cord. "Stand back, I haven't used it in a while. Might give off sparks or explode."

Obediently Gaz stood back and prepared to duck.

The plug met the socket. Electricity flowed through the thing without a spark nor explosion. All the lights came on, the screens filled with static and a whirlpool of light and color mysteriously came from the mechanical ring. Unable to help it, Gaz's narrow eyes lit up in wonder. Triumphantly the machine's creator brushed off his hands. "Amazing. It still works." A strangely hopeful look filled his eyes. Gesturing to the machine, he gave her a mildly vainglorious face. "I am amazing, no?"

_Yeah, when isn't he?_ His human friend shook her head in amusement. Gaz was trying to put the pieces together and somehow they weren't coming together the way they were supposed to. Part of her gave voice to a tiny suspicion. They only warned her against gaining such hopes.

Zim approached her, serious now. "I'll show you how it works." Gently taking her by the arm he led her to a monitor. He started typing her name on the screen under: PAST LIFE SUBJECT. Afterward he went on, "Pick a date."

It was starting to dawn on her now. "I don't . . . I guess . . ." She fished for a bit and gave up. "I dunno. Uh, December 24, age five." For some strange reason, it came off the top of her head. What was so special about that time besides being the day before Christmas?

Zim entered the information and hit a switch. Suddenly the static filled screen above them flickered. Gaz's mouth fell open when she realized what it was.

The scene unfolding was in black and white. A young Gaz sat on the floor in front of a tinsel and light decorated tree, the bow in her hair was undone with the ribbon trailing down her tiny back. Her head was tilted back, staring up at the angel perched on the top of the tree. It looked like any enchanting scene from childhood. Then suddenly the tree shook and someone jumped out from behind it. He loomed over the tiny girl making claws of his hands.

"BOO! I am the evil crazy Christmas elf of doom!"

The young Gaz gave a startled cry and reeled back on her hands. She bit her bottom lip, looking scared for a second before her little face scrunched up in irritation. Picking up a teddy left haphazardly nearby, she hit him with it. "Go 'way!"

The eight-year old Dib relaxed and fended off her feeble blows. "Aw c'mon sis, I was just kidding." She tossed aside the teddy when she realized it wasn't working and tackled him. He fell back under the tree rolled over, caught her little arm and sat on her. A grin spread across his face while she wiggled and kicked her feet.

"I win!" he laughed. He shined his knuckles on his shirt, which had a smiley face on it. "It's obvious who the superior sibling is!"

"Get off me!" little Gaz cried angrily. "DADDY!! Make Dibby get off me!"

Dib released her and sat down. A voice off screen called. "Dib, leave your sister alone!"

"I'm not doing anything!" He glared at her. "Tattle-tale."

Gaz folded her arms and stuck out her tongue. 

Dib pointed at her. "You're gonna get yours."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"ARE TOO!"

The voice called off again. "Both of you be quiet!"

Stubbornly the children fell silent. Gaz mumbled, "Am not."

Dib put both hands behind his back and leaned toward her. "Bet Santa didn't you get anything. You been baaaaaad."

"Na-uh!" Gaz protested. "I'm a good girl! You're bad!" She pointed at him. "Bad, bad, BAD!"

Naturally Dib became upset. "But I tried! I did!" He paused and brushed her off. "Aw, who cares, you're only five years old." He plopped on the floor and crossed his arms over his knees. "I'm prob'ly not gonna get anything I wanted anyway." His face hardened. "Stupid Christmas."

His sister came up behind him and draped herself over her brother's back. A faint smile crossed his face and he started to laugh when she rested her head on his shoulder. "Cut it out."

She giggled and started rocking them both back and forth. "Gimme a piggy back ride."

"No, you're too heavy."

"Please?"

Dib reached back behind him and tickled her until she let go. Gaz rolled over the rug and tugged on his sleeve. "C'mon, you never do it anymores."

"You threw up last time." He made a face. "Ew."

"I had a cold!" She tugged again. "Daddy don't give me rides anymores. He don't make funny aminal noises anymores." She paused in a brief second of thought. "Dib?"

"What?" He lay on the rug with his arms out, staring at the ceiling. His sister crawled over and looked down at him.

"Tell me a 'tory."

"Bout what?"

"Tell me about the deer with the shiny nose."

"I don't know that one." He rolled to his side away from her.

She gave him a little punch. "Uh-HUH! You do so!" She crawled over to the other side after another second of thinking. "Dib?"

He sighed. "What, Gaz?"

"Play with me. Please?"

He shut his eyes. "Later. I'm tired."

"Dibby!" she whined grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. "You never play with me no mores!"

"Yes I do. I played with you yesterday in the snow. I let you throw snowballs at me and then you hit me in the eye when I kept ducking." Dib sat up and started to fix the bow in her hair. "Gaz, you've got to stop pulling that out." 

"I do not! It does it all by itself!" She pulled away when he was done and then pointed to her cheek. "Kiss me!"

Dib sighed and did. "You're really silly."

She giggled. 

"You excited about tomorrow?" he asked her lying on the floor again and staring at the tree. His sister imitated him.

"Uh-huh." Dramatically she whispered, "I made you a present!"

He smiled. "Really? What?"

She snickered. "Not tellin.'"

"Oh man," he pretended disappointment. "Guess I'll have to wait then. I made you one too."

"You did?"

"Yup."

They fell silent, staring at the softly blinking lights of the tree. The monitor went to static shortly thereafter. 

The adult Gaz smiled. She was hugging herself, feeling tears well in her. "I don't know why I remember that so clearly. Maybe because it was the last year we spent Christmas together." Gaz's smile turned sad as the memories came back to her. "Then he just got really crazy into the paranormal and spent the next Christmas Eve out trying to prove Santa was fake." The hurt started to resurface in her mind. "That was the loneliest night of my whole life." She turned her back to the screen. "Oh Zim, why did you show me this?"

Zim came up behind her and said quietly but bluntly, "Because I can bring your brother back."

Bring her brother back. Those words struck her. Her heart stopped and for a moment she felt faint. Slowly she turned and looked him in the eye. "It's not funny."

"I'm not laughing." He gestured hard at the machine. "This shows more than your memories, Gaz. This can alter the past!" Walking up to the spiraling portal he pointed. "If you place an object that is compatible with the field, it will replace an important object in the past. It changes the here and now. In effect," he paused and sighed. "It can change history."

"So you're saying," Gaz said looking from the portal to him. "If you go back to the day when Dib was killed, you could stop it from happening?" Her heart began to race. "You mean . . . he could be here with us now?"

He nodded.

Darkness passed over her face. "Then how come," she said evenly with controlled vehemence, "you didn't use this before?"

"I . . ." Zim faltered, at a loss. "A long time ago before Dib was killed, I got a warning from myself in the future . . . it told me never to use the machine. I don't know why but since I trusted that if I had to go so far as to tell myself not to use it, then maybe I shouldn't. Maybe never." Zim took a deep breath and rested both hands on her shoulders. "I stored it down here and promised myself not to mess with time again. Eventually all things hidden become forgotten. I forgot about it for a long time, Gaz. It was only back out there it came to me again." Their foreheads touched and she closed her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about this before. I'd only just remembered it myself."

For a while neither moved. Finally Gaz opened her eyes. "How come . . . how come you're asking me about it? Why not just do it?"

Her friend exhaled. "Because I . . . you . . ." Lost, Zim shook his head. "Gaz, if I change the past then this future won't exist." He raised his eyes to hers. "Of course we wouldn't remember any of it. But things would be different."

She caught on. "You and I won't happen." For some reason she felt certain of this the moment it occurred to her.

He nodded diffidently. "Truth be told, if your brother hadn't died and changed the way I thought, I would have never reached out to you, we never would have been friends and very obviously we wouldn't be . . . we wouldn't mean what we mean to each other now." Zim kind of shrugged. "On the other hand," he added lightly. "Dib lives, he and I will still fight and you'll be able to grow up together. Maybe you'll get the chance to realize how much you both love each other."

Gaz nodded but didn't look happy. "I-I don't know. It isn't right to change what's already gone past is it?" She started to pace. "I'm finally at a place where I'm happy now. At least I think I am." She stopped and looked up again at the machine. I'd finally just let him go too . . . but with this - ! It was the weirdest case of irony she ever come across in her life. _Six months ago my brother's ghost tells me to live and get on with my life, six months later I actually manage to accomplish this feat and then BOOM! Here's the chance to make all ten years of pain and misery disappear. But is the right thing to do? Has anyone the right to change the past?_ Maybe in the greater scheme of things, Dib wasn't supposed to live. Perhaps his death prevented an even worse thing from happening. Or maybe his dying was the only way to make things here and now be the way they were. When your number is up, your number is up. What if preventing him from dying caused a time rip, making someone else die in his place?

Gaz felt anguished and confused. With all her heart, she knew she'd always long for her brother. Even after seeing him earlier this year in an encounter she never believed could happen, Gaz kept a tiny dark place inside of herself that hung on to him. No one human being would remember Dib and none ever will, she thought. Everyone around him thought he was insane and ignorant of reality and that's how anyone would remember him. No one would remember a boy who desperately wanted to find his place beyond the alienation of life. A boy who clung to his little sister as the last link to what used to be a thing he called happiness. A boy who thought his tears of frustration when this sister pushed him away went uncared for. No one would remember a boy so hurt by a cold hearted world he hurt himself hoping that one day one of those cuts would free him from that pain.

_But maybe . . . maybe that can be changed._

"Dib wanted to die for a long time before you came," Gaz said suddenly turning back to Zim. "He wrote in his journal once saying he hated what he had become. How he wished he could be the son dad always wanted, how he wished he hadn't driven me away from him. 'I am dirt,' he wrote, 'I am the ground people walk on, the grass that never grows and the little star in the sky no one wants to see because it's too far away.'" Gaz pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. For a minute, she seemed lost in her thoughts. An internal struggle waged and resolved itself. "Zim." He looked up. Their eyes met. "Why do you want to do it? He's your enemy and you two . . . You know."

Zim kind of shrugged. "Yes. I am well aware of that but . . ." He trailed off. "I'd rather see him every day and think I hate him than live all the centuries loving that poor bastard and knowing there's no way I could tell him how important he is to me." He smiled sheepishly. Admitting this took a lot and he knew she could see it.

Gaz went to him and took his hands. "So it's really true. We really won't happen."

The corner of his mouth twitched. He let her hands go and went to the computer. He typed a few things in and waited. Gaz came and stood beside him, watching several calculations in Irken flash on the screen. After a few seconds, Zim shook his head. "It's unlikely."

"But not impossible."

He glanced at her. "I guess."

Gaz rubbed the skin between her eyebrows, her eyes dark and distressed. "I thought this would be an easy decision to make."

At length, he replied. "Me too."

Breaking, Gaz gestured helplessly. "I love my brother but I love you too! I can't choose!" She covered her face. When he put his arms around her, she didn't object. "Choose for me."

"No," he said. "If I'm going to change the universe, I'm going to do it knowing it's what you wanted."

Gaz pulled back a little. "But what do _you_ want?"

He smiled. "You." It disappeared. "Of course then . . . I won't have you. But then we'll never remember not having each other so we wouldn't miss it."

"True."

"Still . . ."

"Yes."

They stood there in silence, torn. They were thinking about their lives. They were thinking about their friendship, from when it began to where it ended and then to where they finally found each other again. They also thought about how much they'd each grown in his and her own ways, about the people they were now. They were thinking about all these things that would not happen if they did this. But they were also thinking of all the things that MIGHT happen if they did.

Eventually Zim spoke. "I want to do it."

Gaz blinked and her heart leapt. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." He touched her face. "Very sure. Besides . . . I love you."

She gave a start and then slowly smiled at him tearfully. "You're not making this easy."

The smartass grin was back. "When are you going to learn that with the almighty Zim NOTHING is easy?"

"Oh shut up." Gaz winked at him. "I love you too by the way."

Zim groaned and punched himself in the face. Finally after a moment, he heaved a great sigh. "I can't believe this."

"Yeah. I know." She knew what he was thinking. Giving up one future for the sake of the past wasn't something either of them ever expected to have to do. Or expected that it was something they wanted to do.

Gradually, Gaz came to him and pressed herself against him. She toyed with the edges of his uniform for a few seconds. Loosely he rested his arms around her and they bent their heads together again. 

"Zim."

"Yes?"

"On the off chance we _don't_ get together, I'd like to at least know in _this_ future we did."

He chuckled. "So what do you suggest?"

"Oh I think you know." The suggestion in her voice was plain to all.

Zim's eyes opened wide for a moment. Then a slow and familiar scheming evil grin stretched across his face. 

Gaz kissed it right off. 

___________

The next chapter will most probably be the final one. I aim to make it longer too so you'll have to wait a little while. Or not. I get these things up so fast I surprise myself!


	15. A New Beginning

A/N: The ending to this chapter can be interpreted in many ways and they could all be correct. It's up to you to decide. ;) 

***

For most everyone, no matter who you happened to be, there is a moment where you feel at your most content. Where you know right deep in your own self you are exactly where you should be. Sometimes you even feel like you finally figured out exactly who you are. You have everything you want in your hands, cradling it in your presence, holding it close. Keeping it safe. Watching Gaz sleep, Zim knew this is where he wanted to be. The kind of live-forever moment to be recorded in the movie reel of the mind and taken out whenever it was in most need of. 

Zim let his eyes rove over every detail of her face, the curve of her neck and the way her hair framed around her face. The sheet started at her bare shoulders and gracefully conformed to the curve of her body. Her face was still, a lock of hair covering one eye, one arm draped over the pillow with the other lying almost across her waist. Her nostrils flared delicately as she exhaled and a faint disturbance from within sent a small frown playing over her forehead. Then her expression relaxed and that particular cycle ended. Who'd know hours before she had totally and utterly abandoned herself. He'd never seen anything like it -- he'd never seen her allow herself to be lost like that. Thinking about it, Zim remembered with some shame, he'd been very raucous. Sense only popped back into him after her head had bumped the headboard (fleetingly he also recalled she'd been bracing it with both hands). Letting his gaze drift to the arm lying close to him, he saw the red marks on her pale skin where he'd gripped her. Yes, he'd hurt her. He let his head drop back on the pillow. He hadn't meant to do that.

__

Well, he thought, _in my defense, she never told me to stop._ Turning over on his side toward her, he felt a twinge and he winced. With love came pain and time again taught him there were just some things you didn't do on a daily basis. Not that he hadn't enjoyed it, far from it. Nor did he doubt that this time she had taken to it. 

They both had.

Zim grew restless and sat up slowly, not wanting to disturb her. Slipping out of the bed, he stealthily dressed, all the while keeping an eye on the sleeping woman. _I did this last time,_ he thought. _Woke up in the middle of the night and went off to think._ Yet this time it wasn't the sex that was on his mind, it was something else. A churning sensation of confusion twisted and turned inside his gut like the Midgard serpent trying to pull loose.

Being quiet as possible, he slipped from the room and moved into the kitchen. Going to the sink, he filled a glass of water and set it in the middle of the table. Then he sat down folded his arms over on top and rested his chin on them. He stared through the glass, the water distorting the shadowy room's image. During nights he couldn't sleep or wanted to keep awake, Zim found it better to keep his concentration if there was a mild element of danger in the room. It was a weird ritual he'd gotten into shortly after he discovered his weakness to water. If it spilled or splashed on him, he was in trouble. Yet he knew if it stayed in its glass undisturbed, it couldn't hurt him. 

For a while, Zim sat there. The moonlight streaming through his window set the glass glowing with a silvery, crystalline light. Faint light rings appeared around water shadows. In its own way, the deadly substance was beautiful. _Pity, I'll never know why Gene Kelly was so happy to let himself get soaking wet. Singing a song with a big dopey smile on his face while that deadly rain drenched him through and through. If an Irken tried that he'd be dead! Hehe. _

Zim shook himself. No, he had to stop distracting himself. But distracting himself from what? These thoughts were okay. Amusing harmless little things.

He exhaled. _I know what I'm trying not to think about. What I'm trying to pretend isn't weighing on my mind._

But why? It was so clear cut, so simple. This was his dream, for years he'd longed for this chance. This second chance not only to heal the painful blow but to actually prevent the blow from ever being struck. 

Well, think about it. Do you want to do it?

__

Yes.

Why?

__

Because . . . he struggled for a personal answer. _Because I love Gaz and I can't stand to see that desolation in her eyes. I can't stand to see her be so alone._

Aren't you there though?

__

I am. But I will never be enough for her. There's a missing piece to the puzzle of her jigsaw and I don't fit in the right hole.

What hole is that?

__

Family, he was surprised how easily the answer came to him. _Humans need family and even though it could be anyone their heart chooses, they all have a deep place inside themselves that wants family to be blood. Gaz wants it._

How do you know?

__

She said it herself. She said she's lost her whole family. Her mother is dead. Her brother is dead and her father died inside. Anything else is not a fit substitute.

Then why not bring back the whole family then if that's what she wants? 

__

It's him. He was the one thing she was certain of. That no matter what else happened, whatever she thought of herself, she always would know her brother loved her. And that he would never stop loving her. No one questions it, no one makes fun of them for it. In their weakness at least together they knew that's where their strength lay.

What about you? Don't you pretty much fill in a lot of that?

__

I could. I would. But there's one thing I can't be.

What's that?

"I'm not Dib." He sighed. "I'm not her brother. I'm her friend, I'm the one she gives herself to but I'm not her brother." Zim opened his eyes and the anguish scrunched his features. His eyes started to itch. "I could never be enough for her."

When someone spoke to him out of nowhere, he nearly jumped a mile.

"Hello _Zim_."

The alien dragged his arm across his eyes. "Huh?" Had Gir gotten up? It couldn't be Gir though, Gir only addressed him as lord or master. Besides the voice sounded too . . . human.

"Amazing. After almost ten years you're still dense."

__

I must be hearing things. Zim looked around curiously, not sure whether he ought to be frightened. "Who's there?"

Suddenly crouching on the table was the form of a boy. He crossed his elbows over his knees and grinned cheerfully into the astonished extraterrestrial's face. "Hi."

"Whoa!" Zim kicked back and his chair skidded across the linoleum. Jaw dropping, he pointed at the glowing figure. "Y-You're NOT in my head!"

"Nope." He kept grinning. 

Zim's mouth opened and closed a few times. Temporarily the power of speech eluded him. "S-So ghosts are real?"

"Yep." Dib looked absolutely thrilled.

"But . . ." Zim rubbed his eyes and blinked hard a few times. Nope. Still there. "This is crazy. How is it you are here? You're dead."

The ghost looked irritated. 

"Ohhhkay." Zim moved on, knowing he wasn't going to get anywhere with the obvious.

"Why are you here?"

Dib sat down cross-legged. "To talk."

The alien lit up. "Oh that's great! Do you know?"

"No."

"Oh." Zim scratched his neck. "Uh, do you _want_ me to tell you?"

"No."

Confused, the Irken frowned. "Then how are we going to discuss this?"

Dib shrugged. "By talking." He winked at his former enemy. "It's a pretty straight-forward process."

Zim growled. Even dead Dib retained his oddball sense of humor. 

"I know." His enemy smiled. "So let's talk."

"Okay. Um," he thought about it. "Do you think we should do it?"

"Well," Dib thought aloud, "do you want to do it?"

"Yeah. Only there's a problem."

"What's the problem?"

Zim sighed. "We don't know if we should."

"Ah."

"Yeah." Zim sagged in his chair. "It sucks." After a minute he looked up at Dib. "Are you really here? I'm not dreaming am I?"

Dib dropped his head and shook it. Looking up he stood up on the table and opened both hands. When Zim shot him an apprehensive look, Dib crooked his finger at him. Zim stood and approached the small spirit form. Rather uncertainly, he reached out with his own hands and touched the tinier ones. 

A sharp, intense sensation went through him in a cold rush. "I-I feel you." He stammered, feeling his defenses go down. "Oh _God_ . . ." he whispered feeling the spirit wrap his fingers around his own. For no real reason he fathomed consciously, he felt Dib touch him where only the dead could touch. It was like he was inside his mind reading everything in him and leaving him bare. Dib watched his enemy take short quick breaths. Faintly, Zim managed, "What are you doing to me?"

"Nothing."

"N-No, no" Zim hated how his voice quavered. "Y-You're doing _something_. I can feel it, you're in my head. You're _in_ me." He stepped back and felt his knees give a little. "No," he moaned a little more quietly. "Let me go."

Dib started to lift his hands.

An intense kind of fear knifed Zim and he snatched the spirit's hands back. "_No._ You're not leaving me again." He felt himself go small, going away. Even his own voice sounded distant and frightened. Getting angry, he tried to growl menacingly. "You can't win all the time. You _can't_ because it's . . . it's _not_ . . ."

"Not what, Zim?" Damn it, how could a ghost be so gentle?

He closed his eyes and said quietly, "It's _not_ fair."

"Zim, _what_ do you want?"

Zim shook his head. "I just want what I could never have. What probably won't ever be real." He met the shine of Dib's glasses. "I wanted to tell you I . . . I've been a good loser and I don't want to be a good loser anymore." _I want you back,_ he wanted to say but the words stuck in his throat.

"You're not a loser." The ghost spoke sympathetically. "You're tall, you're wiser, you know what your heart wants and you know who you really are. Not many people get to that point in their lives." Dib subtly averted his eyes to the side saying the last thing, as if he were saying it to himself. 

"But . . ." Zim shook his head. "I'm not happy."

Dib figured it out. He asked anyway. "Because I'm not there making you miserable?"

"Partly. It's also because of Gaz." Zim took a deep breath, held it and let it out. He smiled faintly. "I don't want to lose her. She's better than most intelligent beings I can think of."

"Yes. Yes, she is." But the spirit looked sad. 

The alien leaned toward him. "What is it?"

Dib didn't answer right away and when he did, it was very soft. "It's only after you've died you realized you wanted to live." Softening, he opened his hands and let the alien go. "Look, whatever you decide, only think about what you might lose." He smiled in that endearing linger of a smile. "Or you can think about what you'll gain. Something to think about, space boy." He backed away. 

Zim became frightened and reached out to him. "No, Dib, please don't go," he begged.

"I have to go."

The alien fought back his frustration and anger. "Why?"

Dib frowned a little. "It's not by choice." He came close again and looked into Zim's eyes. He saw them widen with fear at his proximity. "It's okay," he whispered as he faded away. "If what you've decided is what your heart says to do, then maybe I won't have to go."

After he was gone, like always, Zim felt himself deflate. He stared at his empty hands in wonderment. Curling them into fists, he thought calmly. It was all certain now. Clear.

He raced down to his lab containing the temporal machine and stood before it. Cracking his knuckles he typed in a few calculations. He talked out loud to reassure himself. 

"According to this, I can project several different possibilities and scenarios. Then based on the data, I can estimate the resultant future." He stopped and read them over. "But sadly, none of these are perfect. There's just too many factors involved to make any one future a total pro or con." He hit a key. "Especially _that_ one."

He stood back and rubbed his chin. _Boy. Something to think about all right._

This wasn't going to be easy. It seemed to be tonight's mantra.

***

__

Three Hours Later

"Hey."

Startled from his intense concentration, Zim bristled instinctively and started to spring spider legs. Laying a hand on his pak he whipped around. He relaxed instantly. "Oh hi. I didn't hear you come down."

Gaz smiled and tweaked his antenna. "And you said you got your hearing fixed." He clenched his teeth but she just kissed him on the cheek. "Touché." Adjusting the strap to her tank top, her gaze drifted to the machine. Gradually they drifted back to him. "I guess you still . . . want to do it."

He tilted his head to the side, peering at her. "Do you . . . You don't want to?"

Gaz nodded. "I still want to. It's just difficult to think about is all." Interested, she looked at the screens filled with numerous calculations. "What are you doing?" 

"Estimating. See," he pointed to one of the monitors. "Depending on what is changed in the very moments before Dib is supposed die, several things could happen."

Somewhere the little computer geek inside Gaz pricked up its satellite dish sized ears. "Go on."

Zim fidgeted. "Um, I can't really explain it. Not without showing you what happened." Again, he silently added. 

Gaz didn't react at first and then she did. Her lips drew together and her lower jaw got stiff.

He continued apologetically. "I-I wouldn't want to do that to you. So," he put more of a lighter tone on. "I'm going to bore you to death with technobabble." He was relieved when she chuckled and pulled up a chair. "Okay, you ready? There's three possible outcomes. These I just like the best." Zim pointed to the first monitor. "If we replace the vehicle with, I dunno, a rubber piggy, the driver nosedives over Dib and hits the sidewalk. He winds up breaking a few ribs, fracturing his skull and his arm. Good news is, as before, the human lives. He just doesn't come out of it looking his best. Dib lives and you still go to the hospital." Next he pointed to the second screen. "The second is to put something in YOUR way so you don't cross the street at the exact moment the car comes. Thus Dib doesn't chase you and no one gets hurt. Except still maybe _you_ cause maybe you tripped over whatever it was that was sent back to stop you."

"Sounds great," Gaz said sarcastically. 

He smiled sheepishly. "It's all theory, sweetie."

__

Sweetie?! Gaz blushed. Her Irken friend noticed his unusual slip and flushed too. "Ah well, moving along." He went on automatic pilot. It was what he was best at. "The third option is to go back to the moment before you left the house and cause something to happen to make you guys late for skool. The only problem with THAT though." Zim sighed. "Is _then_ Dib will die a month _later_."

"Does he in the other two?"

"No." Zim made a what-the-hell-I-don't-get-it gesture. "In the other two, he lives a long and healthy life. In any combo of the events, he lives."

"Hunh." Gaz didn't exactly believe it, not that she didn't trust what he was saying. "So in the first two, something has to be sent to replace something in such a way so the moment the accident happens, people get hurt but nobody dies. In the last one, nobody dies or gets hurt but Dib dies a month later." She blinked hard and shook her head. "That doesn't make any goddamned sense."

Zim agreed. "It's kind of like that accident is supposed to happen."

Gaz thought a minute. "But in the third one, how does he die?"

__

I didn't want to explore this one. Zim bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head a little, indicating he didn't want to say it. When he wasn't answering, she stood and implored. "Zim?"

He walked away, turning his back to her.

She followed a little but hung back. "What's the matter?"

He swallowed, lifted his head and blinked hard. He didn't want her to see how much telling her this upset him. How watching this scenario had sickened him worse than any real life memories. Summoning a thing closest to courage, he went for a shot in the dark. 

"Zim? Please talk to me."

Shut your eyes. It makes it easier. "Dib . . . he manages t-to . . ." _Wait, I can do this._ "Somehow or other, he manages to break into my house. I think Gir left the window open, something stupid like that. I'm down in my lab and I don't know what's happened." Pause. "I'm in my hologram room. Dib finds and accosts me." Zim stopped and debated his next choice of words. "We get into a fight. It's heated. Dib gets me into a headlock and starts twisting. I guess since he's not strong enough or whatever, my neck doesn't snap. I duck under him and flip him over on the floor. Then I punch him in the head and it dazes him. While he's crouching on the floor trying to recover, I pull out a laser." Zim felt himself start to shake uncontrollably but he hid it well in the palms of his hands. "Dib looks up for one split second and his pupils kind of get small, they dilate or whatever you call it." Zim felt himself slowing down. "I shoot him. He. . . he starts crying. But I just stand over him and point at his head and I . . . I . . ." 

Zim wailed and grabbed the sides of his head, the mental image burning in his brain. "NO! I can't possibly do it. No! I-I _won't _do it, Gaz! I WON'T DO IT!!" He clawed at his delicate antenna, trying to rip one of them off. He screamed but it was a wordless scream. It did it. It finally did it. Evil fate and its inherent cruelties managed to take him over, to twist him, weaken him, chewed his psyche up and spit him out. It came together and stripped him. 

Seeing a nightmare come back to life, Gaz quickly went to him and grabbed him and shook him. "Stop! Zim, don't hurt yourself!" 

__

Don't hurt yourself anymore . . . don't hurt yourself anymore . . .

She trailed off and let him go, staring at him as if she never did before. She was back at the tree, she was seeing the marks on his wrists, she was crying. Pulling from the trance, she held his chin still. His eyes were darting all over the place. Hysterical, he was hysterical. "Zim." She spoke gently. "Look at me."

He did.

She made two fingers and pointed to her eyes. "Watch me right here." He stared into her eyes. "Now calm down. It's theory, okay? Just theory. It hasn't happened. It _won't_ happen. Okay? It won't happen."

Visibly weakened, Zim returned to the pedestal of sanity, attempting vainly to clear his mind. "I-I don't want to live like this Gaz, he'll never leave me alone . . . he'll never ever _ever_ leave me alone."

Not knowing what to say, Gaz ran her hand up and down his arm as if he were a small child. 

He went on in a small voice. "Something else. We can try something else." He looked up again. "I'm sorry." She touched his face once. "I just want to do it right." But he stood there and let her touch him until his pride returned. "I need to think." He went past her back to the temporal gate and stared at its whirlpool for a long time. 

For a long while he immersed himself in his thoughts, quietly aware Gaz was standing right next to him. He glanced at her and he ached. The human woman was loyal to those she let into her heart - fiercely loyal to the point of madness. He felt fortunate in a kind of way to be the second person ever in her life to pierce that aloof shield.

"You know," Gaz began. "I have an idea."

He gave her his full attention, pulling out of his thoughts.

Gaz approached the field, not saying anything right away. "What if," she started, "we warned _you_? At the moment before it happens we send a message to you. I mean, you saw the whole thing happen."

"How would we warn me?"

Gaz pulled down her shirt over the top of her pants. "Hmm. Well, how did you warn yourself last time?"

"Uh, well, problem with that." Zim coughed embarrassedly. "I wrote on a rubber piggy. I was operating the machine and after I said "Now to unleash screaming temporal doom!" my brain was outside my head and you can guess where the pig wound up."

"But you didn't die?" Gaz gave him a skeptical look. "Obviously."

"No. My pak reached out, grabbed the brain and shoved it back in my skull. The rubber piggy was discarded on the floor. After I got my senses back, then I read the message." Zim shrugged at the mixture of fascination and revulsion on the human's face. No one ever said Irken science was pretty.

"Well, is there any less disgusting way?" She was making fun of him. He loved it.

Zim paced back and forth a few. "Huh, well, just before the accident happened, a kid walking by me threw a tennis ball at my head. I caught it, looked at it to see what it was and then tossed it." His eyes lit up into a mad red glow. "THAT'S IT! We send something to replace the tennis ball! I'M INGENIUS!" He made his victory pose.

"That was my idea, hon."

Hon? He gave her a look worth a thousand words. 

"What if it doesn't work though?" she worried. "Say we do this but you can't react fast enough assuming you're going to? You're still evil back then. You wouldn't listen to anyone but you." Thoughtful pause. "Unless of course you wrote it on Irken stationary."

He laughed. He sobered quickly though. "Well, what do you think?"

She looked at the screens and then back at him. Her expression spoke for her.

Zim held up a finger to show her she had a point and on the ball. Quickly he tapped in the calculations and then his arms dropped limp at his sides. He stared blankly at the screen, a tiny smile sneaking up unexpectantly on him. Gaz eagerly came to his side, waiting for the result. She could already tell from the look on his face he knew. The ambiguity of the expression kept her on needles and she longed to scream at him just to get him to hurry and get over his shock and tell her.

He told her all right. If you called an abrupt loud whoop and crazy laughter any sign of make known. Gaz wasn't sure of what to say or ask. She just watched him let loose and waited for him to calm down. Typical Gaz patience, she was very good at it.

Coming back, Zim scooped her off her feet and hugged her. "It works. It works!"

"It works?" she repeated incredulously.

He laughed again and shook his head in disbelief. "It works." He put her down and gazed at her affectionately. Having someone treat her like she was the greatest thing to grace the planet made her feel uncomfortable but in a good way. It felt the same as when he'd been making love to her. 

The implications of what he said started to sink in. "So . . . I guess let's do it."

"I guess."

They exchanged an uncertain look.

Zim put the heel of his hand to his head. He appeared troubled.

Gaz put one arm over the other and waited for him to speak.

"I'm thinking," Zim glanced at the temporal field. "About something someone said to me." He gathered his thoughts. "He told me to think about what I'd lose and also to think about what I might gain. He also said . . . it's only after you've died you realize you wanted to live."

For a moment neither of them spoke again.

"To think about what I'll lose and what I'll gain." Zim repeated and tapped his chin. "Hmm. We'll lose this future where Dib is dead and we have nothing but each other and that pain nothing seems to get rid of. On the other hand, in that other future what we'll gain is all three of us being alive and well." He glanced at the monitor. "It seems to indicate our lives get better after the accident. Doesn't say exactly HOW they get better. They just do." He smiled. "I think I like that." He turned to her. "Do you?"

Gaz slipped her arm around him and pulled herself close. "Do pigs fly?"

"When Gir throws them."

She laughed and gave him a squeeze. "I'll miss you . . . even though I won't."

"I'll miss you too." Then he added, "Even though I won't."

"So it's a go?" she said hopefully.

That scheming grin returned. "It's a go." Doubt clouded him for a second. "There's a problem though."

"What?"

"The Empire. If I don't go back ten years from when that happens, does it mean the Resisty win?" Zim smacked himself. He perked up suddenly. "But if it says the future gets better for all of us, it must mean the Empire DOES get saved. Just maybe not by me." Zim put his hands over the controls. "It's we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. So let's do." Before touching anything, Zim turned back to Gaz. "Last chance to back out."

Gaz simply placed herself beside him and put her hand over his where it sat poised for action. She moved his hand over the control and the screens went on standby with the words SUBJECT PAST LIFE: on screen. She typed in DIB MEMBRANE and smiled at him. Slowly he smiled back and moved his head around to get the cricks out of it. 

"All right." He set to business. "Get me a tennis ball and a permanent marker." 

***

Little Gaz couldn't find her shoe. She had looked for it everywhere and still she couldn't find it. Crawling on her hands and knees, she went under her desk. _C'mon, stupid thing, where are you? _she thought backing out. Getting back to her feet, she went to the closet and pulled it open.

Aha! There! She sat on the floor and pulled it on, tying the laces as fast as she could. Her expert fingers did it in less than two seconds. Urgently she hopped over to her chair, picked up her book bag and hurried down the stairs. Hurry up before he starts yelling again.

"Gaz, c'mon!" Dib shouted up the stairs. "We're going to be late!"

Gaz came down the stairs, her small hand sliding along the banister. Her usually narrow eyes opened up a little more when she saw the angry impatience in which her brother regarded her with. "Why do you have to have a mouth?" she asked peevishly, moving around him and heading out the door.

Dib caught the door as she tried to slam it closed. He followed her. "Look, sis, nothing personal or anything but if you've had as many detentions as I've had you'd understand." Pause. "No, wait, you do."

Okay, that was going too far even for him. Gaz whipped round and locked fierce snake eyes on him. Dib shrank back. Her message gotten across, she continued on her way with her older brother tagging along. God, she wished he'd go away . . . or make some friends at least so he wouldn't have to walk with her to skool everyday.

***

"GIR!" Zim stood at the door to his house. "Hey!"

The little robot appeared. "What?"

"I'm going to skool now!" he shouted. "Guard the base viciously! Let not one stink-beast in. That means no pizza deliveries!"

"Awww." Gir kicked at the ground. "No fair."

Zim shook his head. "I'm sorry but I can't afford to have anyone come breaking in here. Bad enough we have to deal with the Dib-monster. Understand?"

"I don't."

Well, what could you expect? "Listen well, my sidekick, because if anything is out of order when I get home, NO TACOS!"

Gir screamed.

"Oh believe me, it gets worse," Zim responded dryly. "Now be good."

"Yes sir!"

The invader sighed and shut the door. "Stupid robot," he muttered. "I can't believe how much moronicness I have to put up with every day. One more stupid remark and I might have to kill something." Having said it, Zim looked around suspiciously. No one appeared. He nodded victoriously and marched on toward skool. 

When he reached the intersection, he heard a whole bunch of kids coming at him from behind. Side stepping to let them pass, he managed to avoid getting knocked down.

"THINK FAST!"

BOINK!

Zim cursed and caught whatever it was that had bounced off his skull. As he held it up to inspect it, a second of a flash as if from a Polaroid came from it. He gasped and stumbled back a little, rubbing the spots from his eyes. 

"What was that?" he muttered poking an eye contact that had started to come loose back into place. Blinking hard rapidly, he returned his attention to the object still clutched in his hand. It was a tennis ball. With writing on it.

****

ZIM it said in black blocky letters **AT THE INTERSECTION A RED CAR WILL COME. IF YOU DO NOT STOP IT THEN YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.**

He turned it over and found it was signed.

****

YOURS TRULY, SPACE BOY (that's you)

Zim read it over again and looked around. "Huh?" The intersection was clear. "What red car?"

He heard a commotion coming from the other side of the street. Zim made a face. It was only the Dib-worm and his little sister. He was yelling at her. _Unusual,_ Zim thought. _He almost never yells at her. _

"Gaz! Stop!" Dib called after her sternly. "You can't cross the street by yourself!"

Gaz walked into the street and stopped in the middle of it. Gaz stuck out her tongue. "I can do whatever I want." To illustrate her point, she stepped off the curb. Dib became upset and yelled at her again. "Gaz Membrane!" Dib yelled at the top of his voice. Several people in the area stopped what they were doing to stare. "Get back here!"

Ignoring him, Gaz started to cross. She paused, probably figuring since there weren't any cars coming at the moment she could afford to do so. She smirked at her fuming brother who'd run to the curb and was glaring at her. She waved. See? the wave meant. I can do it. I don't need your help. I can do it all by myself.

Suddenly Dib's expression went from one of annoyance to panic. "Gaz get out of the street! GET OUT OF THE STREET!"

Remembering the ball in his hand, it suddenly dawned on Zim.

He reached behind and opened his pak.

***

Suddenly things started to change. The world lost its color and sound. There was a red sports car coming her way only in this colorless world it was dark gray. She could see the driver's eyes from where she stood frozen. They were wide and blue - the only hue that managed to emerge from the ashen world. Mutely, she was aware of a loud blaring noise accompanied by a high-pitched, insane shriek. Something hit her from behind, knocking her over. The smell of petrol and hot asphalt filled her nostrils as she rolled over its rough, almost sandpapery surface. Her whole vision filled with charcoal darkness. For a horrible second, she'd feared she'd gone blind.

Slowly she rolled over from her side to her back. Painfully she heaved herself up, propping her upper body with her arms. Groggily, she called, "Dib?" Her head was pounding and when she looked at one of her hands, it was bloody. So were her legs. One of them was stiff and a stabbing pain shot up to her hip when she tried to move. Blinking hard and shaking her head, Gaz looked around. "Dib! Where are you?"

The red car had stopped. Part of the rear end was lifted into the air, the wheels still spinning fast. The driver within leaned on the horn although it did him no good since he wasn't going anywhere. Gaz's gaze drifted beyond the car, wondering what made it stop.

Attached to the back of the car was a suction cup like device with claws that dug in to the back trunk and rear fender. When the car's back wheels quit spinning, the claw thing detached. The car dropped back to the pavement, bounced once on its suspension and started to roll back before the driver came to his senses and put it into park. Gaz's eyes followed the device as it retracted back. Her mouth fell partly open.

Zim stood in the middle of the street behind the car. His face was totally blank and he stood crouched in a battle stance. He looked positively intense for a second until the thing went back inside his pak. Then his knees buckled and he staggered over to the curb and sat down, hanging his head. An audible sound of someone releasing his breath was heard.

Remembering her brother, Gaz snapped her head around, eyes going wide with panic. 

Dib was on his hands and knees directly in front of the stopped vehicle. His nose practically touched the bumper and his glasses hung off one ear. For several seconds he appeared frozen in place. Then suddenly he started to hyperventilate and then his eyes rolled back in his head. He fainted.

"Oh God," said the driver who'd leapt from his car. He didn't see Dib but he saw the little girl with the hurt leg and scratched hands. He knelt by her and asked, "Oh God, are you all right? I'm so sorry, you were right in the middle of the street. I'll call an ambulance. Oh Jesus . . ." His eyes were wide and crazy. 

"If you're done with your sermon," Gaz said in a super deadly calm voice, "bring my brother over to me. He's lying in front of your car."

"What?!" The guy looked and went even more crazy. He ran over and tried to rouse the boy to no avail. Since he wasn't in his right mind, he picked the kid up and brought him over to Gaz and then ran over to a nearby payphone. Whilst all this went on, a rather large crowd of onlookers had gathered. A few kindly individuals went into the street and started to direct traffic around the accident.

None of the people hovering nearby mattered to her. She dragged herself over close as she could to her brother lying on his back. Fearing the worst, she whispered. "Dib?"

Nothing. She touched his shoulder and gave it a little shake. "Please wake up." The pain in her leg was getting worse but she pulled herself a little closer and put her head on her brother's chest. She exhaled and closed her eyes in relief.

Dib's eyes fluttered. He rolled his head back and forth, blinking, trying to shake off the disorientation. Propping himself up, he looked down at the small girl with her face buried in his shirt. "Don't blow your nose on it this time, huh?"

Gaz lifted her face and he was surprised to see it tear-stained. She managed to put her arms around him. "It hurts."

"It hurts?" Dib gently pushed her off him and inspected her wrists. "Ooo." Then he saw her leg. "Man, you need help. Wait here . . . No!" He looked around and then at her. "Let's move to the curb. I know you're not supposed to move but we can't be in the middle of the street." He started to get up. "Do you think you can move?" Worry flickered over his face.

In reply, she put her arm around his neck and leaned against him. Dib gave her an encouraging smile and together they limped to the curb. Gaz bravely held in her tears until she was sitting down again. "Stay here," she told him when he started to get up, pulling on his sleeve. 

Hearing the no nonsense tone, Dib obediently stayed and didn't question it when she pulled close to him and put her head on his shoulder. When her brother gazed over at her, he saw her tears running down the leather of his trench coat. Putting an arm around her, he gave her a half-hug. She didn't object when he started to stroke her hair. "It's okay, Gaz," he spoke for her ears only. "Look at me, okay?" She did and he attempted to smile. "See? You're okay."

"But my leg hurts. That doesn't feel okay." In mild retaliation she gave him a cuff but didn't move away. "You'll ride with me when they come, right?" She meant the ambulance.

Dib chuckled. "Of course."

"I'm sorry I didn't listen."

"We all make mistakes." Dib patted her back. "I'm just happy you're okay."

__

Just happy I'm okay. "I'm happy you're okay too. . . " She drifted and fell asleep. Even though she missed the ride to the hospital, Gaz didn't need to be awake to doubt her brother. He would be there when she woke up.

***

__

A Couple Of Days Later

Dib was sitting on his living room couch reading a magazine. Next to him his sister sat playing her GameSlave. Her leg was on a pillow all bound up. It was quiet except for the sounds of the video game. Eventually Dib closed the magazine and looked at his sister. He opened his mouth to say something when the doorbell rang.

Gaz started to move. Dib held up his hand. "No. Stay put." He moved to his feet and answered the door. Seeing who it was, he stuck his body behind the door he case he needed it for a makeshift shield. "What do you want, Zim?" he asked guardedly.

Zim folded his arms. "You weren't in skool today."

Naturally, the question was ignored. "Go away, Zim." Dib sounded edgy. "I can't deal with you right now."

"Oh?" Zim leaned in imploringly. "Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"About what?" Dib demanded suspiciously.

Zim simply handed him a tennis ball. Dib held it and raised an eyebrow at Zim. Impatiently the Irken pointed to it. The human discovered the message and read it aloud. " 'Zim, at the intersection a red car will come. If you do not stop it then you will regret it for the rest of your life. Yours truly, Space Boy (that means you).' " Confused, Dib glanced up at him. "And this means what to me?"

Zim shrugged and folded his arms over his chest. "Whatever it means, you have it to thank for your being here."

"Huh?"

The Irken rolled his eyes and made a sound of impatience at having to deal with lower life forms. "Ask your sister." Then he spun on one heel and left, his tiny shoulders squaring.

Still holding the ball, Dib looked at it, after Zim and then shut the door. As he walked back to the couch, he said, "Gaz, did you hear that?"

Gaz's head poked out over the top of the couch. "Huh?" 

Dib came around and sat beside her. "Zim gave me this and then told me to ask you about it."

Gaz took the ball and examined it. She shook her head. "I don't know where this came from but I guess he wasn't talking about that." She paused, trying to think about how to tell him this. Just be blunt. "He saved us."

Blank look.

"The car accident. Zim stopped the car from running us over. In effect, running YOU over."

Dib's mouth finally worked. "That would mean . . . he saved my life."

Gaz nodded and went back to her GameSlave. "You better hope he doesn't ask you for anything in return."

Dib slouched down. "Oh he'll find some way to use it against me." His face darkened. "Like he doesn't already do that anyway." He jumped off the couch and headed upstairs. For some reason his feet felt incredibly heavy. Everything in him felt incredibly heavy. He managed to get to his room, walking past the fishbowl where Tak the First swam in circles around her little castle. He dropped facedown on his bed, breathing in the sheets. After a minute, he turned over and reached under his bed. He pulled out a cardboard box and pulled out a notebook with the word POEMS on the cover. Then he sat against his pillow with his knees up, grabbing a pen from the nightstand. For a long time he sat there, occasionally writing, sometimes sticking the pen behind his ear to think.

Tap, tap. 

Dib's hand stopped writing and he looked up. His sister leaned against the doorframe, using her elbow to push the door in. "I just wanted to tell you have to do my laundry night tonight. I can't carry the basket up and down the stairs."

"Okay." He held the notebook over his chest so his words were hidden.

Gaz hovered, trying to think of anything else he needed to know. "Um, oh yeah, there was a phone call for you the other day. A lady. She wants you to watch her kids Friday night." The violet haired girl looked perplexed when she reported this. "Dib, you baby-sit?"

He grinned. "Sometimes."

Gaz came into his room and sat on the end of his bed. "I never knew that. How come?"

Dib shrugged and went back to his notebook. "Never asked."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense."

A few minutes went by. Dib started writing again. His sister pointed to the notebook. "What's that?"

Protectively he held it tight, blocking her view. "Nothing." He sounded resentful. 

Gaz crawled over best she could and plucked it out of his startled grasp.

"Hey!"

His sister chuckled evilly and held it away from his snatching hands. Dib's eyes filled with animosity and he kept grabbing for it even though she easily kept him at bay with one arm. "You can't read it! YOU CAN'T!"

"Why not?" she asked innocently. She scooted back when he started to overwhelm her. "It doesn't look like your journal."

"It's not!" Dib was really pissed now. In a deadly serious voice he said, "You better give that back right this second or I'll break your other leg!" He choked when he realized what he just said.

Gaz lowered the spiral notebook and stared at him with narrow eyes. The hurt came and quickly got replaced by dark, unmuddled rage. "I hate you." Throwing the book at him, Gaz got off the bed and limped to the door. 

"Gaz, wait, stop." Dib got off the bed and touched her arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

She stopped and sat down again heavily. He sat next to her. Several seconds of uncomfortable silence passed. When he looked at her, he was surprised to see tears standing in her eyes. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered absently touching her cast. Looking up at him, voice thick and shaky. "I-I don't hate you."

Dib only folded his hands together and nodded. He still looked upset.

"I know you saved me."

Blinking, he looked at her. Gaz stared off into space apathetically, seeming not to feel it when her brother touched her on the arm. 

"Gaz?"

Coming out of it, she waited.

Dib silently handed her the notebook. Startled, she could only stare at it and then at him. He smiled sheepishly and gestured. "Go ahead."

His sister flipped through it and reacted with astonishment. "These are . . . poems." 

"Uh-huh." Pause. "Just hurry up." He tried to hide how pleased he felt behind his guardedness.

Dib waited anxiously as she read one here and there, sometimes reading a stanza out loud. Most of the time she remained quiet. It did no good for him, he squirmed around a bit. The whole time he felt tempted to snatch it back and the longer she took with it the redder his face got. These poems were the essence of who he was. If Gaz laughed at them or rejected them, it would mean she'd eternally damned him and he didn't want to feel that desire for death come upon him again. This was his whole mind, right there in those pages, his whole soul. There were things in some of those poems he'd never trust to a journal. Or to another human being.

Finally she closed it. For a moment she sat there with it on her lap, smoothing over the cover with her hands. Several beats passed. Then she looked up at him and smiled. A real smile. Unexpectantly she gave him a hug. When she pulled away, she saw that he was puzzled.

"What was that for?" he asked.

Gaz shook her head, still keeping that rare smile on her face. "For being you."

"Being . . . me?"

She nodded and got up again. Getting to the door, she turned back after thinking for a second. "Dib?" she asked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

"I'll let the light in when I can." 

Then she winked and closed the door behind her.

***

__

A Month Later

__

How come the playground always seemed to be empty? Dib wondered from his seat on the swing. Here was all the equipment, almost like brand new and ready to use and no kid in the whole damn suburbs ever came to wear down the slide, break the tire swing, conquer the jungle gym and throw mulch in each other's eyes when occasion and cruelty moved them.

Whatever. Solitude was his companion and more often than not, human company simply bored him to death. Most people were stupid and blind to the things going on around them. _People = stupid, _he thought toeing the ground and going back and forth gently. _If I don't watch out, I'll get so sick to death of it I'll grab me a fold out lawn chair, a pair of shades, a tropical drink and declare, "Heh, let 'em eat doom!"_

"Hehe," he chuckled aloud. "That would be neat."

__

Well, he amended. _Not all people are stupid. Gaz is okay. I mean for the first time, I realize she's really okay._ It was nice to know she had his back. Maybe not when it came to the paranormal or his crusade against that miserable Zim but he could count on her to be there. That's all he wanted. For someone to be there.

__

I'm glad it's her. I'm glad it's my little sister.

When someone else showed up at the playground, Dib stiffened. His eyes followed the newcomer like a hawk. It was the alien. The ritual mockery started in the back of his throat but for some reason it died before it came out. Something about the way he was walking dissuaded him.

He didn't even seem to notice Dib was even there. Just came over and sat on the swing beside him. Kind of slouched down and stared at the ground lifelessly. Dib watched him carefully, keeping his guard up. No way was he going to let an assumed air of being-out-of-itness fool him. _I think I've gotten to be too smart for old smoke and mirror tricks!_

For several minutes, Zim just sat there. Then slowly he stood up and started to walk away. Dib's gaze followed him.

Suddenly Zim stopped and turned around after a minute. Then he did something incredible.

He removed his wig and eye contacts. Throwing them to the ground at Dib's feet piece by piece, each toss angrier than the last one. The human's mouth fell open. Clearly he did not know how to react.

Zim opened his arms to his enemy and presented himself. Then he lowered them. He lost his temper. "WELL?! What are you waiting for?!"

The human raised one eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

Zim pointed to him. "Aren't you going to take pictures?"

"Uh. . . " Dib turned his head. "Why?"

Pissed off, Zim grabbed the human by his collar. "Don't question me! Just take the goddamned pictures! I'm NOT going anywhere!"

Dib shrank back, still totally bewildered. "Wh-What . . . Zim, I don't understand."

The alien smacked himself. "You are incredible." He reached into his uniform and pulled out a white piece of cloth. Then he picked up a stick from the ground and tied it to it. After making the thing, he waved it a few times and threw it at his enemy's feet. "Okay?! Does THAT help?!"

Dib shook his head. "I wanna take a wild guess but . . . I'm not falling for it."

The Irken made two fists. "Don't make me have to say it."

"Say what?" The human got up and gestured frantically. "I kind of know what you're getting at but . . . but . . . WHY?! For what possible reason?!"

A kind of dazed look came into the alien's face. Like a light inside went out. "I-I just got the call I never wanted to get."

"What?"

The alien yelled angrily and sank to his knees. "They LIED to me!"

"Lied? Who?"

He crawled up to Dib on his hands and knees and yanked on his coat. "Kill me."

Of anything he expected him to say, this was the last thing he ever expected to hear out of his mortal enemy's mouth. Scared now, Dib took a step back. "What?!" Kneeling down he took Zim by the shoulders. 

Zim only bent his head until it touched the mulch. "M-My mission was a lie. They told me this morning." He shut his eyes tightly and the next came out in a high-pitched way. "I've been exiled."

"Exiled? They kicked you out?" Man, this sounded unbelievable. "I don't understand."

"It doesn't matter." Zim shook his head before he looked up into his enemy's face again. When he saw his reflection in the boy's glasses he pulled back and got to his feet. He started to move away.

Dib noticed the wig and contacts on the ground. "Zim! Wait! Your disguise!"

Zim waved them off.

Angry, the boy picked it up and blocked his enemy's path. "Look, I don't really know what's going on or what but nobody's doing anything until I hear the whole story." He offered Zim his disguise which the E.T. eventually took back. "Now put that back on. This whole defeatist attitude just isn't you."

Doing just this, Zim smiled faintly. Amazing. He couldn't believe how right he'd been. He'd been so scared to come to him. It'd taken hours to gather even the courage to admit to HIMSELF the truth.

"Now," Dib sat back on the swing and gestured to the empty one beside him. Zim obliged the offer and sank down into it. "Go ahead."

Zim hesitated and then began.

***

Lying stretched on the living room floor, Gaz drew several pictures. A whole box of Crayolas was dumped on the floor in a wide fan like fashion around her. Randomly she'd drop a crayon and grab another, often stretching across the floor with some grunts of effort. There was one she couldn't seem to get. With her leg like a dead log behind her, Gaz knew the stupid coloring utensil was out of reach. Groaning, she propped her head up on her elbows and made a face. It just wasn't fair.

The front door opened.

"Dib? That you?" she called.

"Yeah," he walked into the living room. "Hey, I told you to keep that leg elevated."

__

Bossy. She made a face at the statement and then pointed. "I need the blue."

Dib gave it to her. She smiled her thanks and tackled her drawing with renewed gusto.

Zim appeared beside Dib and spoke. "You still haven't told me why we had to come back to your house."

"It's bigger and gives us a lot more privacy away from that weird green dog thing. Plus it's supposed to rain this afternoon."

"His name is _Gir_." Zim didn't need to be so empathic about it but he felt he had to come to the robot's defense in his absence.

The phone rang. "I'll get it." Dib went into the kitchen.

Left alone, Zim quietly watched Gaz color. It seemed like such an imaginative activity. It was fascinating. He tilted his head to the side and watched as she stuck her tongue out and squinted hard at the paper as she made one particular line. Feeling his eyes on her, Gaz looked up. For a long minute, they just stared at each other.

Gaz pointed to a crayon out of reach. "I need that one."

Zim gave it to her and sat down. "What are you drawing?"

"A monster." Gaz held up the picture. "His name's Ickspat. He lives under my bed."

"Under your BED?!" Zim looked mightily taken aback. 

"Yep."

"Okay." Frankly he was at a loss.

She went back to coloring. After a minute, she looked up at him again. A kind of studying look spread across her face and she peered at him closely. "Do you like video games?"

"Yeah." Zim squinted one eye at her. "Why?"

Gaz shrugged. Damned if she knew. "No reason." She picked a clean piece of paper out and handed it to him. 

He accepted it and assumed the position she was in straight across from her. "Is there a higher purpose to this 'coloring' or is this simply an activity used to exercise the brain synapses?"

Gaz shrugged again. 

Frustrated, Zim poked her in the shoulder. Gaz looked annoyed at first but then she put down the crayon and did it back. For a second they regarded each other challengingly and then they started laughing.

Dib came out of the kitchen and saw them. He leaned against the threshold and folded his arms. A very slow smile started across his face and then he said. "Hey Gaz, I'm ordering a pizza." He took out the mobile phone. "Or would you rather do it?"

"No, you go ahead." She went back to her picture. "You know what I like."

Dib winked at her and went into the next room to make the call.

***

__

Gaz gazed at the monitor. "It worked."

"Of course it did." Zim put an arm around her. 

She was puzzled. "But why aren't we gone?"

"We aren't gone." He grinned. "We're just not here yet." Zim leaned in toward her. They embraced and as they did, he reached over to the computer and hit a switch. One by one, the monitors winked off. 

***

****

"Who controls the past controls the future. 

Who controls the present controls the past."

- George Orwell

***

****

THE END 

__

***


End file.
